Lack of skills blamed for low worker quality

Agus Maryono ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Cilacap 

Lack of skills and a low level of education have been blamed for the poor quality of Indonesian migrant workers going abroad.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno said that of the estimated 6 million Indonesians working abroad, some 75 percent were employed as domestic helpers.

"It's because most of them only have elementary or junior high school education. They don't have the skills to work abroad. So jobs as domestic helpers are the most suitable opportunity for them," Erman told the media on the sidelines of his official visit here.

Low education levels, he went on, made migrant workers vulnerable to a variety of abuse, including being cheated by scalpers before departing for the destination country, or by migrant worker outsourcing companies after working abroad.

"We can't just let this happen. I strongly appeal to regency manpower agencies to take strict action against naughty outsourcing companies and provide would-be migrant workers with enough skills to work abroad," Erman said.

He added his ministry had been working out on how to eventually reduce the number of Indonesian migrant workers employed as domestic helpers, and increase the number of those working in the formal and professional sectors.

"One way of doing so is to prioritize migrant workers who graduate from vocational high schools," he said, adding this would help raise the quality of Indonesian migrant workers abroad.

Erman also expressed concern over the huge number of Indonesian migrant workers employed aboard illegally, pointing out local village officials were often behind the phenomenon.

"It's common to hear of scalpers manipulating such things, but to learn that village officials here are involved is really concerning," he said.

He added such officials often issued documents containing fake information about the migrant worker. In most cases, they manipulated the ages of the person.

"They manipulate the ages of so many underage children, the practice of which is often revealed only after a problem arises," Erman said.

On the other hand, he added, many jobseekers were also desperate about finding work overseas, such that they would do anything, including seeking fake documents or being smuggled, to realize their ambitions.

Nurfaizi, chairman of the Association of Indonesian Migrant Worker Suppliers (Apjati), said half of the country's 6 million migrant workers employed overseas were illegally.

Most of them worked illegally because they went there through illegal outsourcing companies."We therefore strongly ask all Apjati branches and regency and municipal manpower agencies to cooperate in supervising candidate migrant workers, so they will not be easily cheated by illegal outsourcing companies," he said