Trading course for newly unemployed

Trading course for newly unemployed

JAKARTA (JP): Central Jakarta mayoralty has been selected for
a pilot project designed to return people recently made redundant
to work, Mayor Andi Subur Abdullah said yesterday.

The project, scheduled to begin next Friday, will initially
include 200 participants from the mayoralty's 44 subdistricts, he
said.

Each subdistrict is required to send four or five of its
residents for a week's training in the sale of staple foods.
Participants are required to be junior high school graduates and
to have recently lost their job, Andi said.

Each of the participants in the week-long training course will
be provided with between Rp 200,000 and Rp 300,000 in cash, which
is to be used as capital to purchase foodstuffs which they will
then sell.

The initial capital must be returned within six months, with
no interest due. "We hope that after that period, the vendors
will be independent," he said.

The project is being jointly run by the mayoralty, the
Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Manpower.

The ministries will organize the training and support the
fund, while the mayoralty provides manpower, the mayor said.

During the one week training course, participants will be
trained on trade and management.

Subdistrict chiefs will then carefully determine the location
for the new traders to set up their businesses.

In Central Jakarta, the number of people thought to have
recently lost their job has so far reached 180,000. (ind)