Unemployment surged to 8.7 million in February

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)