Unemployment among the educated alarms Moerdiono

JAKARTA (JP): Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono expressed alarm at the high unemployment rate among college graduates, saying that joblessness among the educated is a serious problem.

Addressing a gathering of Ministry of Education and Culture officials yesterday, he said college graduates find it difficult to find employment because they generally loath menial jobs.

They tend to refuse jobs they consider menial although the fields are related to the expertise they obtained at school, he said.

"People with higher educational backgrounds would rather wait for years for white-collar jobs," Moerdiono told the 200 participants of a meeting on educational and cultural matters.

The number of job opportunities available to college graduates is limited, with potential employers stricter than ever about qualifications, he said.

People holding high school diplomas can find employment more easily because they have lower expectations and fewer choices, Moerdiono said.

According to data available at the education and culture ministry, an estimated 200,000 of the some one million graduates that enter the job market every year cannot find employment.

In 25 years to come, Indonesia will have about six million unemployed college graduates if employment grows at the current rate, Minister of Education and Culture Minister Wardiman Djojonegoro said yesterday.

The meeting, which was also attended by officials from other ministries and entrepreneurs, aimed at pooling ideas to assist in drafting the 1998-2003 state policy guidelines.

Moerdiono warned that well-educated unemployed people may be involved in "unproductive activities".

"This is a waste of the nation's human resources," he said.

He suggested that college graduates develop the entrepreneurial spirit and create jobs for themselves.

"Encouraging creativity and job creation are a challenge that our education system should address," he said. "Schools should encourage students to develop their creativity and initiative."

To encourage people to develop entrepreneurship, the government has offered credit facilities for small-scale businesses, he said.

Data released by the Ministry of Manpower in 1994 show that 29 million Indonesian aged 15 years and above were unemployed in 1991. Most of the unemployed were people with junior high school educations who lived in rural areas. (31)