Manpower ministry mulls way to help job seekers

JAKARTA (JP): A more effective system to facilitate job seekers needs to be established to help lower the country's unemployment rate.

The Ministry of Manpower's Director General for Upbuilding and Manpower Employment Tjepy Aloewie said Presidential Decree No. 20/1984, which obligated companies to report vacant positions in their offices, was ineffective.

"The decree seems to be ignored by most companies, so knowledge of job vacancies at the ministry of man power is very limited," Tjepy told journalists.

Tjepy said his office has tried to utilize regional offices across the country to provide employment information and assist companies find suitable employees.

"However, the system has failed so far ... we just have to find a better one so the ministry of manpower can provide real employment assistance," Tjepy added.

Eddy Tjahja, managing director of JobsDB.Com, an internet website providing information on job vacancies, said his website actually provides information on about 20,000 vacancies in almost 20 countries for Indonesians to apply to.

He added that the vacancies included about 1,000 in national companies.

One problem with Internet employment service is that information on many jobs is often limited.

To better facilitate matching job seekers with vacancies, Tjepy said he supported the mediums such as career expositions.

Another job mart is due to be held here in mid-September.

"Although, this was just an incidental venue, I hear the success level of this kind of event is good. The last one in June managed to get 1,000 people recruited from 18,000 applicants," Tjepy said.

The two day expo, the third major expo of its kind, will be held on Sept. 15.

Some 2,000 job vacancies have already been identified for the expo in at least 40 companies, both national and internationally based.

Expo organizer Timothy Abraham said several foreign companies, which do not have representative offices in Indonesia, are also joining the event.

"Most of them are looking for sales officers and experts in information technology. The average requirement they set is a degree or at least a minimum one year working experience," Timothy said. (dja)