Unemployment surged to 8.7 million in February

JAKARTA (JP): The number of unemployed people doubled from 4.4 million last year to 8.7 million at the end of last month, an official said yesterday.

Sri Harto, spokesman for the Ministry of Manpower, also said the number of people working less than 35 hours per week had doubled from 9.1 million last year to 18.4 million.

This pool of labor -- including those who work for only several hours per week -- are often referred to as the partially unemployed, or disguised unemployment.

Together, the unemployed and the partially unemployed number 27.1 million double last year's total of 13.5 million.

Sri said that with economic growth forecast to come to a standstill this year, an estimated 2.7 million new entrants to the labor market could not be absorbed into the country's workforce.

He also said the number of workers dismissed by companies troubled by the monetary crisis had reached over 1.5 million.

"The dismissed workers are from the construction and property sector (one million), the textile and garment sector (300,000), the banking sector (50,000), the industrial sector (60,000) and other sectors (300,000)," he said, adding the figures are expected to rise sharply in the near future.

Sri said most of the disguised unemployment was in the agricultural and informal sectors of the economy.

He predicted that the unemployment rate would rise again this month, as troubled companies were still dismissing workers.

Abdul Latief, former manpower minister, announced last month that the government began the first phase of a program of labor intensive projects in December last year. The first stage will run until the end of this month and has attempted to employ 4 million unemployed workers on a basic daily wage of Rp 7,500.

Sri, however, said that the manpower ministry did not control the projects because they were being carried out by regency and provincial administrations in cooperation with the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas).

"We do not know how many people have been recruited by the projects and how they are proceeding because we have been involved only as technical advisors," he said.

Funding for the projects came from the World Bank and was channeled through Bappenas and provincial and regency governments.

The program, which is scheduled to run until the end of March 1999, is financed by the Indonesian government (Rp 1.8 trillion), the Japanese government (50 million yen) and the World Bank (US$150 million).

Sri also said the Armed Forces, in cooperation with businesspeople, had also run similar projects. The ministry are as yet unaware how many people have been employed by this scheme.

Sri said the planned deportation of illegal Indonesian workers from Malaysia was being monitored by a team made up of representatives from the ministries of manpower and foreign affairs, the Armed Forces and the Association of Labor Export Companies, which has been dispatched to Malaysia.

"The results of the mission will help the Indonesian and Malaysian governments solve the problem together," he said.

The Malaysian home affairs ministry is planning to deport 10,000 illegal migrants to Indonesia each month, up from 3,000 a month. The Sunday Times recently reported the country had to deport the workers because its detention camps could accommodate only 3,000 a time.

An estimated 1,000,000 million Indonesians have illegally entered Malaysia since the country was hit by the monetary crisis in July.

The Malaysian authorities have strengthened patrols in coastal waters in the Strait of Malacca, which separates Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra. (rms)