Apindo Asks Prabowo's Government To Focus On Creating New Jobs

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Employers' Association (Apindo) views that creating new jobs should be a concern for the new government.

This is considering that employment is still a challenge today.

"The creation of jobs is a major issue that must be a concern," said Apindo Chairman Shinta W Kamdani as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, October 23.

Shinta reminded that the creation of new jobs will be closely related to incoming investments and labor that are able to be absorbed by the industry. Therefore, the linkage and congestion (link and match) between the output of human resources (HR) from education and industrial needs are the keys in creating new jobs.

He added that the trend of termination of employment (PHK) also seemed to increase along with the transfer of types of work. With economic conditions that lead to the era of digitization, said Shinta, of course this will have an impact on layoffs. So, the problem of unemployment and layoffs must also be a concern for the government.

"We see that these factories are not only in terms of decreasing market demand, but we also see that there are now many technological innovations that have resulted in having to reduce their workforce a lot. So this is also a concern in the future," he said.

In addition, Shinta also highlighted the issue of the minimum wage which according to her is not only an industrial relationship but must also consider productivity.

He said the increase in productivity in the industry was still homework. On the other hand, unions ask for an increase in the minimum wage every year.

Regarding the minimum wage, according to him, basically Apindo follows the government regulations contained in Government Regulation (PP) Number 51 of 2023 concerning Wages.

In the PP, the formula for calculating the minimum wage has taken into account the variables for economic growth, inflation, and certain indexes or alpha.

Shinta said Apindo will continue to support government work programs through the Ministry of Manpower (Kemnaker).

His party is looking forward to the steps taken by the Ministry of Manpower under the leadership of the new minister, namely the Minister of Manpower Yassierli, to build collaboration.

Moreover, Apindo has been collaborating in the employment sector, such as through the National Wage Council (Depenas).

Previously, the Minister of Manpower Yassierli revealed several main focuses that the ministry would work on in the first 100 days since he led the Ministry of Manpower, one of which included issues related to the minimum wage.

According to Yassierli, the issue of labor wages is not only about how to increase the minimum wage, but also the amount of wages that are considered or based on productivity.

In addition, the Ministry of Manpower will focus on efforts to create new jobs as well as solutions to reduce unemployment and layoffs.

As expected by the President of the Republic of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto and the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, the Ministry of Manpower is also expected to be able to answer challenges related to productivity and competitiveness of domestic human resources.