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.