RI must transform labor force: Dorodjatun

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta

Indonesia has to transform its labor force, especially in this era of globalization, to improve competitiveness and productivity if it wants to speed up economic recovery, says a senior minister.

"The government, in the next five years, has to be able to improve the quality of the work force, particularly their productivity, to achieve economic growth of 7 percent or more," said the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti.

During his speech to mark the launch of the 2004-2009 national manpower improvement plan here on Wednesday, he said that the first step would be to limit population growth by intensifying the family planning programs. Then, the government must see that it has no alternative but to improve the quality of human resources in this country since almost 70 percent of workers are poorly educated and unskilled. Unemployment numbers have also reached alarming levels.

"We must come down to earth in designing our labor policy for the next five years, otherwise the labor issues will become more complicated and our workers will not have the skills to work internationally, which would mean Indonesia, as a country, would never be able to compete with even the other countries in the Southeast Asian region," he said.

He explained that the government must raise the national standard of graduation at all education levels in order to improve the quality of human resources. It also must establish many training/apprenticeship centers to train graduates in such a way that they can compete in the domestic and international labor market.

"Besides improving the quality of human resources, workers also have to improve their work ethos and culture in order to improve their productivity," he added.

He explained that most workers employed in the manufacturing and agricultural sector have no concept of corporate culture and could not improve their productivity because of their low education and skills.

Dorodjatun, a former professor of Economics at the University of Indonesia and Indonesia's former ambassador to the United States, explained that Indonesia would carry out numerous infrastructure mega-projects that would absorb a lot of workers, both skilled and unskilled, over the next five years in its attempt to reach an increase to 5 percent in economic growth from the current 4 percent. But he warned that the skilled jobs would go to foreigners unless more was done here to improve.

"The government is planning to rehabilitate seaports and airports in almost all provinces, as well as the tunnel connecting Sumatra and Java and the Trans-Kalimantan railway project. All of these require skilled workers. If we do not prepare skilled workers, those jobs will go to skilled foreign workers," he warned.

Meanwhile, Director of the Training and Productivity Center at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry Mudjiman said the next government should raise the education budget to improve the quality of education and establish a cross-department agency to handle the unemployment problem and improve the quality of workers.

"The improvement of educational quality is a key requirement so that it will be easier for private companies and government agencies to provide on-the-job training for fresh graduates. This will help create conditions that are conducive to investment and support the government's program to encourage the real sector to grow faster," he said.

Mudjiman explained that the government had to continue promoting an "employment-friendly" investment program, increasing the number of infrastructure projects in the state budget and providing credit with low interest rates for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to help cope with the pressing unemployment problem.