Eight million Indonesians openly unemployed
Some 8.32 million Indonesians or
7.14 percent of the work force of 116.53 million are currently in a
state of open unemployment, Manpower and Transmigration Minister
Muhaimin Iskandar said.
"This condition is the related to many factors such as the large
population, the limited number of job opportunities in the formal
sectors and the fact that the country`s natural resources have not yet
been developed optimally," the minister said in his address at the
graduation of a number of students of the Indonesian Islamic University
of Yogyakarta on Saturday.
The minister said multiple efforts to create job opportunities needed to
be made to solve the unemployment problem and improve the people`s
economy. He said the government had set itself the target of lowering
the unemployment rate from 7.14 percent now to 5.1 percent by 2014.
According to the minister, one of the ways to create job opportunities
was developing entrepreneurship among the people. Muhaimin expressed
hope that educational institutions in Indonesia would adjust their
curricula with the demands of the manpower market so that newly
graduated students could easily find jobs.
"Students must also improve their skills in independent entrepreneurship
so that after graduation they will no longer seek jobs but be able to
create jobs," said the minister.
Earlier, the government had announced it had set itself the target of
reducing the unemployment rate by 0.5 percent from 7.5 percent in 2010
to 7 percent this year.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made the statement when giving the
targets of national development in the 2011 government plan of action
before all cabinet ministers, governors, district heads, and mayors at a
working meeting last January.
Besides reducing the unemployment rate, President Yudhoyono said the
government would also lower the poverty rate from 13 percent to about
12.5 or 11.5 percent this year.
"That is our target, to achieve it we should certainly have financial resources in our state budget," the president said.
Source : http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/70563/eight-million-indonesians-openly-unemployed--minister
