Labour Minister Hopes National Internship Programme Will Reduce Open Unemployment Rate

Labour Minister Yassierli hopes the National Internship Programme will become one of the efforts to reduce the open unemployment rate (TPT) in Indonesia.

“(The hope is that the) National Internship (Programme) must also become one of the solutions to address TPT, open unemployment. So, the hope is that if a region or area has a high unemployment rate, then the proportion of internships there should be greater,” the Minister stated when met in Jakarta on Thursday.

Based on the latest data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the TPT in November 2025 was 4.74 percent, down 0.11 percentage points from August 2025.

Therefore, Labour Minister Yassierli also proposed increasing the quota for participants in the 2026 National Internship Programme to 150,000 people, following last year’s figure of 100,000 people.

This proposal, he continued, has been conveyed to President Prabowo Subianto, while discussing and awaiting approval for budget availability.

In addition, he also assured that monitoring and evaluation of the first and second phases of the National Internship Programme continue to proceed and are being enhanced.

Currently, the National Internship Programme is followed by around 100,000 participants spread across various companies, ministries, and institutions.

Its implementation is carried out in stages. For phase I, 14,952 participants are scheduled to complete their internship period on 19 April 2026.

Participants who complete the six-month programme will receive an internship certificate, while those who participate for more than three months but less than six months will obtain a certificate of participation.

For participants, this document is important as initial capital to demonstrate experience and work readiness more convincingly.