Working women rare in Riau

Working women rare in Riau

PEKANBARU, Riau: Many companies setting up plants in Riau have been forced to recruit workers from outside the province because most families here still bar their women from working away from home.

Muzni Tambusai, the chief of the local office of the Ministry of Manpower, said most Riau parents are still reluctant to let their girls go to work in factories.

He cited as an example the case of a newly established textile company in Lobam, Bintan Island, which only managed to recruit 800 young women while it had vacancies for 3,000. "The company was forced to bring in women workers from outside the province."

In another case, a manpower exporter company trained 120 local girls to work in factories, but only 45 were willing to be sent to work in high paying jobs in Malaysia, he said. (emb)