RI asked to open its labor market
RI asked to open its labor market
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesian managers, and professionals such as doctors and
lawyers could find themselves competing with their foreign peers
for jobs here in the near future if the government surrenders to
pressure to open the country's labor market.
Arsa Suthisna, head of research and development at the
Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, said at a seminar on
Tuesday that the liberalization of the domestic labor market was
part of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement in Doha,
Qatar in 2001.
He said that there were some 16 nations including the U.S.,
Japan, Panama, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan,
Singapore, Norway, Hong Kong, Korea, Canada, Poland, India, China
and countries in the European Union who wanted to export their
professional workers and managers to Indonesia. This also means
that Indonesian professionals and managers would also be allowed
to seek jobs in those countries.
These countries are now demanding that the government revoke
the Economic Need Test (ENT) ruling, a policy that enables a
country to limit or to shut doors to foreign workers.
But with many of Indonesia's managers and professional workers
lacking in quality and skill compared to foreigners, liberalizing
the labor sector could create a much greater unemployment problem
in the country.
With this in mind, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration,
Jacob Nuwa Wea said that Indonesia was not yet ready to fully
liberalize its labor sector.
He said that a special task force had been sent to Geneva to
renegotiate the WTO scheme.
Under the initial plan, the liberalization of the labor market
is scheduled to begin this March, but the WTO scheme allows
Indonesia to delay in until 2005 if the above 16 nations agree to
it.
Indonesia would be branded as an uncooperative nation if it
declines to apply the WTO agreement. This has serious economic
consequences.
"We have asked for a postponement, as we are not ready yet to
liberalize our labor sector. We still need time to enhance the
quality of our workers," said Jacob in the seminar.
He said that most of the country's professionals had no
international certificates yet.
He feared that opening the doors for foreign professionals
would worsen the country's unemployment problem.
Based on the current data from the ministry, 59 percent of the
country's labor force has only an elementary school education,
and only 5 percent graduated from high school or universities.
The recent unemployment figure from National Statistics Agency
(BPS) shows that the country's full unemployment reached 8.1
million, while half unemployment is some 36 million.
The country has a total labor force of 97.6 million from the
total population of 210 million.
Coordinator of the Indonesian lobby team for labor
liberalization at the WTO forum, Adolf Warrouw, said that the 16
countries had proposed managerial level jobs in several sectors
such as energy, mining, financial, tourism and
telecommunications, and several in professional sectors such as
medical, law, accounting and engineering.
Adolf further said that thus far, the government was
considering whether to agree on opening the labor market in the
shipping and construction sectors since many Indonesian workers
in these areas have already gained international certificates.