Projects employ over 4,000

Projects employ over 4,000

SAMARINDA, East Kalimantan: Several labor-intensive projects
worth Rp 1.5 billion have put more than 4,000 unemployed people
to work in East Kalimantan.

Local authorities are overseeing 17 road, farming and
irrigation projects in three subdistricts of the provincial
capital, Jakiman, the chief of the provincial branch of the
manpower ministry said here on Saturday.

He said the labor-intensive projects, which had started in
June, would last through next month and would absorb as many as
7,000 workers.

"These projects are quite strategic in helping ease the
impacts of the monetary crisis and the drought felt here since
early this year," he said as quoted by Antara.

The projects have so far created 44 kilometers of irrigation
canals, 12.5 km of roads and eight hectares of farming land, he
said.