Menaker Ida Fauziyah: Already 11.9 Million Workers Received Subsidiary Salaries

JAKARTA - The Minister of Manpower (Menaker) Ida Fauziyah stated that government assistance in the form of salary subsidies has been distributed to 11,950,300 workers or the equivalent of 97.37 percent of the total recipients from stage I to stage V.

"As of October 12, 2020, salary subsidies have been distributed to 11.9 million workers. We continue to encourage banks to accelerate the distribution process," Menaker Ida said in a press release, quoted on Wednesday, October 14.

For stage V, the Ministry of Manpower received 578,230 data on prospective recipients from BPJS Ketenagakerjaan on September 29, 2020. However, on September 30, 2020, which is the deadline for data collection of prospective salary / wage subsidy recipients, it received another 40,358 additional data.

Due to the insignificant number, to facilitate reporting to the public, the additional data is part of stage V. So that in total at stage V there are 618,588 data on potential wage subsidy recipients.

"This government assistance is one of the national economic recovery programs. This program is expected to be able to maintain people's purchasing power in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Menaker Ida.

Based on data from the Ministry of Manpower as of October 12, 2020, stage I salary subsidies have been distributed to 2,485,687 recipients (99.43 percent); stage II as many as 2,981,533 recipients (99.38 percent); stage III as many as 3,476,361 recipients (99.32 percent); stage IV as many as 2,579,703 recipients (97.20 percent); and stage V as many as 427,016 recipients (69.03 percent).

Salary subsidies are channeled through 2 payment terms. After the payment for term I has been distributed for 5 stages, the Ministry of Manpower will conduct an evaluation before the payment for term II begins to be distributed.

"We are targeting for the second term to begin distribution at the end of October 2020 or at the latest, the distribution will begin in early November," explained Menaker Ida.

With a budget of Rp. 37.7 trillion, the government assistance program in the form of salary subsidies is targeted for 15.7 million workers who are registered as BPJS Ketenagakerjaan participants (as of 30 June 2020). However, until the deadline for submitting recipient data, the data collected and submitted by BPJS Ketenagakerjaan only reached 12,272,731 workers / laborers.

"The remainder of the budget will be handed back to the State Treasurer. The plan is that it will be distributed to subsidize salaries for honorary teachers and teaching staff, both within the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Religion," said Menaker Ida.