Out of work, out of touch
One of the economic crisis' worst impacts is that people are losing their jobs -- not by the hundreds or thousands, but, apparently, by the millions. Very few people in this country have been forthright in admitting that the problem exists. Most people are either resigned to it and helpless, or just turn a blind eye. Either way, they prefer not to discuss it at all.
Two prominent authorities, however, raised the unemployment problem to the national level last week. National Police Chief Gen. Dibyo Widodo predicted that rising unemployment would push up the crime rate in 1998, while Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. A. Wahab Mokodongan said the military was ready to deal with possible social and political upheavals related to the problem.
If the police and the military are looking at the back end of the unemployment problem, that is because it is their job to ensure national security and stability, and to deal with the negative consequences of rising unemployment. But we have hardly heard from anyone in the government about what is being done to deal with the unemployment problem at the front end.
We are not short of statistics, that is for sure. In fact, in the absence of any reliable official figures, we have had so many figures that they have become confusing, though still alarming.
The Armed Forces last week said two million people had been laid off in 1997 because of the monetary crisis. Earlier, Aburizal Bakrie, the chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said one million workers had lost their jobs last year. Gapensi, the association of Indonesian construction companies, said three to four million workers in the ailing property sector had been laid off in the last six months.
Add to this the thousands of Indonesian workers returning from abroad -- first from Saudi Arabia and, very soon, from Malaysia -- and our unemployment figures will swell to even greater numbers.
The official figures, as always, look too optimistic to be true. Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief said last week that his ministry, which must approve all dismissals, registered 16,961 jobs lost in 1997 with some 10,000 planned dismissals soon to come. His figures are dwarfed by those supplied by the business sector and the military, raising questions not only about credibility, but also about how much the ministry is out of touch with reality regarding the gravity of the problem.
The Federation of the All Indonesian Workers Union (SPSI) has estimated that 7.7 percent of the nation's 91-million-strong workforce are unemployed and predicts that the figure will rise to 9 percent this year.
SPSI defines employment as work of more than one hour a week. This definition has been used to take into account seasonal agricultural jobs in which many rural people sometimes work for only one or two hours a day. SPSI has said the "disguised" unemployment figure -- which includes people with jobs paying less than is required for minimum daily needs -- could reach as high as 37 million to 40 million people, or 45 percent of the workforce.
These confusing figures show a need for more reliable and accurate methods of collecting unemployment statistics. It is not only the police and the military who need accurate unemployment figures for their tasks, but the rest of the government in order to draw up policies, or at least to be alerted to the extent of the problem.
For most people, the unemployment rate may be just another statistical figure. But ask those who have lost jobs. Being unemployed does not only mean losing one's source of income, but eventually it also means losing one's dignity and self respect. If and when that happens, even decent people have been known to be driven into doing unimaginable things, like committing crime.
Something needs to be done, and quickly, to deal with unemployment. While there are no shortcut solutions, it would help if the problem is pushed to the forefront of the national agenda. Before that could happen, however, the government must first honestly acknowledge the gravity of the problem.