RI urged to improve skill of workers

BANDUNG: Indonesia has yet to maximize efforts to create overseas job opportunities for its skilled workers to help reduce unemployment in the country, a job consultant said here on Wednesday.

Juliati Simorangkir, who is also the director of Roll Internusa Mandiri that sends medical workers abroad, said that in the next 20 years developed countries like the United States, Britain and other European states would need up to 2 million nurses.

They are now hiring nurses from several Asian countries but Indonesia was not one of them, she added.

"The shortages have been recognized as opportunities by the Philippines, India, China and South Korea, which all have begun sending nurses overseas," Juliati said after signing a cooperation agreement with the Bandung-based Padjajaran University, aimed at improving nursing skills in Indonesia.

She said the U.S. currently needs around 500,000 new nurses per year and Britain 10,000, and that the needs have so far been met largely by those aforementioned countries, particularly the Philippines. --JP