Unemployed Graduates: A Question of Competence?

A higher education degree in this country has not yet become a guarantee that someone will more easily obtain decent work. In 2025, around 1.01 million university graduates were still recorded as unemployed. This figure shows that the problem of unemployment cannot simply be blamed on individuals.

In February 2026, the number of unemployed people in Indonesia was still around 7.24 million, with an open unemployment rate of 4.68 percent. Of the 147.67 million people in work, around 87.74 million were working in the informal sector, while formal workers numbered around 59.93 million.

This condition shows that the issue of employment remains a major task for the state. On one hand, the public is continually encouraged to improve education and skills. On the other hand, the available job opportunities are not necessarily sufficient to accommodate all job seekers.

Today, a graduate who wants to get a job must go through lengthy competition. They send many applications, take written tests, interviews, psychometric tests, and even pursue various certificates and training. Job fairs have also become crowded places for job seekers.

When they have not yet found work, the advice often given to them is to improve their skills, add certifications, fix their CV, or learn new skills. All of that is indeed important.

However, the fact is that the number of available jobs is not proportional to the number of people who need work.

Even someone with good abilities can still be unemployed if the available vacancies are far fewer than the number of job seekers. This means the problem does not always lie in individual quality. There is a larger problem, namely how the economic system provides jobs for the public.

Economic growth has often been used as a measure of development success. Investment increases, production rises, companies expand, and the economic growth rate goes up.

But does that growth automatically enable people to obtain decent work?

In a capitalist system, economic activity is fundamentally closely linked to profit. Companies open vacancies when they need labour and when it is considered profitable. Conversely, when companies carry out efficiency measures, workers can be laid off.

As a result, the continuity of a person’s employment is heavily influenced by business conditions and interests. The state mostly plays a role in making rules and creating an investment climate, while job creation is largely left to market mechanisms.

This is where the problem lies. It is not enough for the state to say that jobs will be created when investment enters. The state must also ensure that the nation’s wealth and economic potential truly provide benefits and jobs for the people.

Indonesia has enormous natural resources. There are mines, energy, marine products, agricultural land, forests, and various other riches. If these resources merely become objects of investment and more of the profits flow to capital owners, then natural wealth has not fully become a tool for improving public welfare.

Comprehensive management of natural resources, from upstream to downstream, can open up many job opportunities. Not only jobs at mining or plantation sites, but also processing industries, transport, technology, trade, and various supporting businesses.

Thus, the state should not merely wait for the private sector to create jobs. The state must have a real role in building various productive sectors capable of absorbing labour.

Islam has a different view on economic matters. The goal of the economy is not solely to pursue growth or maximise profit, but to ensure that the basic needs of society are met.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that a leader is a guardian (raa’in) and will be held accountable for the people he leads.

In the Islamic concept of governance, the state may not wash its hands of the people’s lives. The state has a responsibility to create conditions that allow the public to obtain work and meet their living needs.

Therefore, it is not enough for the state merely to provide job training or hold job fairs. The state needs to build and develop sectors that require a large workforce, such as agriculture, industry, energy, food, technology, and other productive sectors.

When someone loses their job, the problem also should not be allowed to become a purely personal matter. The state has a responsibility to ensure that the people’s basic needs remain met while opening the way for them to return to work.

Islam also has rules regarding the ownership of wealth. There is wealth that belongs to the public and may not be controlled by only a few people.

Certain natural resources included in public ownership must be managed by the state and their proceeds returned for the benefit of society. With proper management, this wealth can be used to finance various public needs while developing economic activities that open up jobs.

Graduates are part of the human resources who possess knowledge, abilities, and potential to build society. They should not continually be placed in a position of having to compete for a limited number of jobs.

Therefore, solving unemployment is not enough.