Thu, 15 Jun 1995

More expat workers to flood RI job market

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian professionals and policy makers, beware! As a result of the rapid globalization process and trade liberalization measures, more and more expatriates will be coming to Indonesia's shores to work, according to a leading demographer.

Apart from the possibility of depriving Indonesians of jobs, the influx of foreigners will have major social consequences, most notably cultural clashes, Aris Ananta of the School of Economics at the University of Indonesia said yesterday.

"Indonesia should be mentally prepared to accept the presence of more foreign professionals in their midst, and for the cultural values they are bringing with," Aris said yesterday while briefing reporters about an upcoming seminar on the impact of globalization on the manpower sector in Indonesia.

The seminar, planned for next Tuesday, is being organized by the Demography Institute of the University of Indonesia, of which Aris is a deputy chairman. Speakers at the one-day forum will include prominent economists and labor experts, such as Mari Pangestu, Yudo Swasono and Soehadi Mangkusuwondo.

Indonesia, by signing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, must now dismantle many of the restrictions it currently imposes on the employment of foreigners.

In the health sector, for example, the government is currently reviewing its policy of restricting foreign physicians. About the only valid recourse open to the government in limiting the influx of expatriates is to insist that they be able to speak the Indonesian language.

Aris said that even though most expatriates would be filling positions for which no qualified Indonesians could be found, their presence would still slow down the training and development of Indonesia's human resources.

Unless a transfer of technology was assured, he warned, the inflow of expatriates could further widen the disparity which exists between Indonesian and foreign workers.

He added, however, that Indonesia needed the presence of professional expatriates because the bulk of the Indonesian work force was unskilled and had attained only a low educational level.

Most multinational companies and even some local companies had been forced to hire expatriate managers because of the shortage of qualified Indonesian workers, he said.

Aris, who was inaugurated as a professor at the university last month, said that, given the current manpower situation, Indonesia would continue to supply workers to do menial jobs in neighboring countries.

Aris predicted that unemployment in Indonesia, currently officially estimated to be three percent of the work force, would increase to five percent by 2005 and to eight percent by 2020. (rms)