Jakarta – The vast majority of businesses in Indonesia are not prepared to hire disabled people, despite the 1997 law that obliges companies to allocate at least 1 percent of their positions to the disabled, an employment expert said.
"Judging from our previous experiences, 95 percent of the companies throughout Indonesia are not prepared to hire disabled people," managing director of PT Jobs DB Indonesia, Eddy S. Tjahja, told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of his company's exhibition in West Jakarta on Wednesday.
According to data from the Indonesian Disabled People's Association (PPCI), in 2006 less than 1 percent of the 22 million disabled people living in Indonesia are employed. The 1997 Law on Handicapped People states that a company must allocate at least 1 percent of its jobs to people with disabilities. If it fails to do this it risks facing substantial fines. The law, however, has not been enforced.
As an organizer of exhibitions with jobs and careers as their focus, Jobs DB Indonesia acknowledged that any plans for organizing events targeting disabled people would depend on employers' demands.
"If the employers are supportive enough, then we can organize it. If they are not, there's no point. We are only a facilitator, you see," Eddy said. He added that facilities in most buildings in Jakarta and Indonesia in general were not disabled-friendly.
Jobs DB expects to welcome some 20,000 visitors to its two events this year. "Previously, we could hold job fairs up to four times a year, with almost 80,000 visitors in total," he said.
In the last two years, however, Jobs DB Indonesia has altered the focus of its exhibitions. Its measure of success is now the number of people who find employment at their events, referred to as job transactions, rather than simply the number of visitors.
"We are looking for 1,000 to 2,000 job transactions from this two-day expo, which will last through to March 29," said Eddy, adding that the transactions would be worth around Rp 65 billion (US$7.1 million).
Last year, Jobs DB Indonesia pocketed Rp 50 billion from each event after some 1,000 successful job transactions.
"We facilitated more than 35,000 job seekers last year. Overall, we currently manage about 800,000 job seekers' profiles and more than 12,000 company profiles throughout Indonesia," he said.
Around 300,000 job seekers visit the Jobs DB Indonesia website each day.
Among the 32 exhibitors at the current fair are Nestle, PT Berlian Laju Tanker, PT Nissan Motor Indonesia, PT Goodyear Indonesia, Bank Danamon, PT Bank International Indonesia, PT BNI Life Insurance, PT Panin Life, PT AIG Life, PT Cakrawala Andalas TV (ANTV) and PT Danapati Abinaya Investama (JAKTV).
There are more than 25,000 medium- to large-scale companies in Indonesia.