Labour Minister: Aligning Industry and Education to Reduce Skills Mismatch

The Minister of Manpower, Yassierli, stated that aligning the needs of the business and industrial sectors with the competencies of the new workforce and the education system is expected to reduce employment mismatches.

“Therefore, we, from educational institutions, supported by the government, must continuously make adjustments so that the aforementioned mismatch does not occur,” said the Minister when met at the Senayan Parliamentary Complex, Jakarta, on Wednesday.

According to him, the mismatch between industrial needs and relevant worker capabilities is becoming increasingly challenging following global labour market dynamics.

“Mismatch is indeed a long-standing challenge. It is not only in Indonesia but almost in every country, especially when industries are constantly undergoing changes regarding their processes,” the Minister added.

According to the Minister, the National Apprenticeship and National Vocational Training programmes are two strategic government initiatives to achieve this target.

“We are not merely speaking in normative terms. That is why the government programmes, National Apprenticeship and National Vocational Training, actually have the primary objective of reducing the aforementioned mismatch,” he said.

This year, the government is targeting a total of 150,000 fresh university graduates for the National Apprenticeship programme. Meanwhile, the National Vocational Training programme aims to attract more than 200,000 participants.

“This is what we are doing, and thankfully, the evaluation results so far have been good. Our challenge is to continue improving so that the ultimate goal is to increase their opportunities to be absorbed into the workforce,” said Minister Yassierli.