Elly Burhaini Faizal – Quality education is the key to improving productivity during this era of high under-employment in the country, an ILO report says.
Per Ronnas, Geneva-based ILO's senior employment and development specialist, said recently that Indonesia had to develop skills faster than it had been to make sure that it did not fall behind other economies.
"Indonesia has to focus more on quality education and technology for high quality workers so that it can move up the development scale," he said on the sidelines of a discussion on local labor productivity.
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded a decrease in the unemployment rate over the past four years, reaching 7.1 percent in 2010. The rate stood at 10.3 percent in 2006.
In the same period, the poverty rate decreased to 13.3 percent from 17.8 percent in 2006. Underemployment, however, remained high, reaching 59 percent in 2010.
Low quality jobs typically pay workers low salaries. In 2009, more than 40 percent of workers received monthly salaries below the regional minimum wage (UMR).
An Employment diagnostic analysis (EDA) study by the ILO recently revealed that lack of education remained the biggest obstacle for people in getting decent jobs.
Conducted in three municipalities in the first semester of this year, the study also highlighted poorly developed markets and infrastructure as major obstacles to productivity.
Ronnas said that high-quality jobs were the main link between economic growth and better welfare. "We have to focus on productive employment. Only through these kinds of jobs can most people escape from poverty and increase their welfare," he said.
In Ambon, Maluku, for example, there is concern about the quality of education, as the illiteracy rate is below the national average.
Maluku Manpower and Transmigration Agency official John Maakewe said that the availability of quality and relevant education in the province was not really as high as it should be to address the demand for a labor market economy.
He said that both the government and the private sector had not developed any tourism colleges in Maluku despite that the tourism-sector has been promoted as one of the region's major industries in an effort to boost revenue.
"As a result, our tourism sector tends to employ workers from outside the province, such as Makassar, Bali and Java, leaving local youths unemployed," John said.
Janti Gunawan, the National Planning Agency's (Bappenas) youth employment consultant, said that the result of this inefficiency was that many people living in the three pilot provinces did not have productive job opportunities in spite of the province's resources.
"Creating more and better jobs is critical to our people's prosperity," said Ceppie K.Sumadilaga, Bappenas' deputy minister for poverty, manpower and small and medium enterprises.