Jakarta, Dec 17 (Antara) - Indonesia has to prepare its human resources
in the face of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which will take
effect at the end of next year.
The Indonesian government has about a year's time to improve the skills
of its workers to make them capable enough to compete with expatriates
within the ASEAN region, where the free flow of trade and services,
including that in the labor sector, will be implemented from December
31, 2015.
The government has, in fact, taken important preparatory measures to
face the free trade region, as well as the free flow of expatriates in
the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), which has a potential market of 625 million people.
"The
government has taken various anticipatory steps to prepare Indonesia in
the face of the implementation of the AEC," Rizal Edwin, the acting
deputy assistant to the chief economic minister, stated on Tuesday
(December 16).
The economic coordinating ministry official made the remarks during a
media briefing on "Indonesia's readiness to face the ASEAN Economic
Community in 2015" at the foreign ministry's Nusantara building.
Edwin pointed out that some 85.5 percent of Indonesia's blueprint for
the AEC was completed by August, while the average ASEAN scorecard on
preparations for the community was recorded at 82.1 percent.
Although the government has been taking anticipatory steps to face the
free flow of trade and services within the region, weaknesses in the
field of labor continue to prevail. Indonesia needs to improve the
quality of its workers so that they can compete not only at home but in
other countries within the region, as well.
According
to the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), in the
run-up to the AEC 2015, Indonesia still has three main problems to
overcome in the manpower sector.
"Indonesia
has three main problems in the manpower sector---limited employment
opportunities, low quality of workforce, and high rate of unemployed
people," Kadin Deputy Chairman for Manpower Affairs Benny Soetrisno
stated.
Soetrinso made the statement at a seminar on the acceleration of the
mapping out and development of Indonesian manpower organized by Kadin.
He
further noted that limited employment opportunities have caused the
work field to be unable to absorb all job seekers, including fresh
graduates from educational institutions, unemployed people and idle
workers who lost their jobs.
He pointed out that the low quality of manpower could be observed from
the results of a census organized by the Central Bureau of Statistics
(BPS) in 2014, which showed that 46.9 percent of workers were elementary
school graduates.
"With regard to unemployed people, the statistics showed that some 7.4
percent of the population did not have jobs," he remarked.
Moreover, Adhe Nuansa Wibisono, an ASEAN researcher at The Habibie
Center, was quoted as saying by The Establishment Post in its website
www.establishmentpost.com that BPS data for August 2013 mentioned that
the number of Indonesian workers holding qualifications from elementary
schools (SD) and below was 52 million people (46.93 percent). This was
nearly half the total number of workers of 110.8 million people.
Workers who are junior high school (SMP) graduates made up a total of
20.5 million people (18.5 percent), while high school graduate workers
(SMA) totaled 17.84 million people (16.1 percent). University graduates
formed the lowest number of workers at 7.57 million people (6.83
percent) and those with a diploma totaled 2.92 million people (2.63
percent).
In comparison, figures from the Department of Statistics Malaysia
(DOSM) show that 13.12 million people were employed in the country in
2012. Of the total, 7.32 million people (55.79 percent) were high school
graduates, while 3.19 million people (24.37 percent) were university
graduates and diploma holders.
In other ASEAN countries, such as Singapore, 2012 data from the World
Bank reveal that of the 3.22 million people employed, 49.9 percent were
high school graduates and 29.4 percent were university graduates and
diploma holders.
From these data, we can see that nearly half the Indonesian workforce
(46.93 percent) is part of the low-skilled labor sector, a stark
contrast to that in Singapore and Malaysia where 80 percent of their
workforce are high school and college graduates. This implies that
Indonesia lacks the required preparedness to face the ASEAN free labor
market, should the AEC be in place on December 31 2015.
Therefore,
Soetrisno emphasized that the government should prepare a draft map on
the management of its manpower to face the free flow of manpower within
the region.
Based on experience, he revealed that university graduates who do not
find jobs soon after passing out of college are prepared to take up
whatever job they can find.
Indonesia has been independent for 69 years, but the government has yet
to be able to guarantee and provide jobs to all jobseekers.
"This is a reality that Indonesians face every day. We are all
obligated to create concrete concepts to contribute to the work field in
the country," the Kadin deputy chairman said, expressing his view to
represent businesses.
However, workers themselves affirmed that they are ready to face the
AEC and to compete with expatriates within the region.
"We are ready to face the AEC," Marseno, an activist of the Indonesian
Metal Workers Federation (FSPMI), stated last week.
Even though workers in Indonesia often stage rallies, it does not
reduce our ability to compete with expatriates, he added.
"We are smart workers with skills. We organize rallies because the
government is quite slow in responding to our demands," he remarked.
According to Marseno, one of the reasons workers held rallies is that
the minimum wages set by the government are still far from the rates
they expect when compared to those in neighboring countries.
Citing
examples, he noted that the minimum wage in the Philippines was set at
Rp3.6 million, in Thailand at Rp3.2 million, and in Malaysia at Rp3.2
million. On the contrary, it is set at a meager Rp2.4 million in
Jakarta.
"In fact, the conditions of works in these countries are not so different from those in ours," he noted.
***3***
(T.A014/INE/S012)
EDITED BY INE
(T.A014/A/BESSR/Suharto) 17-12-2014 20:20: |
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