The Manpower and Transmigration Ministry said that more than 50 percent of workers in the country are elementary school (SD) graduates.

Dita Indah Sari, adviser to Manpower and Transmigration Ministry Muhaimin Iskandar said that more than 54.2 million of the 109 million workers in the country only graduated from elementary school.

"So you can imagine the quality of our human resources," Dita said as quoted by tempo.co.

She said that most of the elementary school graduates worked in the informal sector or traveled abroad as migrant workers. Dita said that workers with higher education levels mostly worked in factories or were employed as low-ranking staff in companies.

Data from the ministry said that in 2011 more than 581,000 Indonesians worked abroad as migrant workers. Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said that 68.2 percent of 109 million workers in the country are employed in the informal sector.