The Pre-Employment Card Program Continues Until Jokowi's Term Ends

Illustration of a pre-employment card. (Photo: ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The government plans to continue the Pre-Employment Card Program until the end of the term of office of Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

The Pre-Employment Card program itself has been started since April 2020 and has reached 12.8 million participants in 34 provinces.

"With this government commitment, the Pre-Employment Card Program will exist until the President's term ends," said the Head of the Pre-Employment Card Program Implementation Team, Rudi Salahuddin, to reporters quoted on Friday, June 17.

Initially, said Rudi, the Pre-Employment Card Program scheme was only in the form of training to improve the quality of workers. However, continued Rudi, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 this program was also combined with social assistance programs.

"Initially this scheme was a program to improve the skills of workers, but later it was used as an instrument for social assistance," he explained.

Therefore, Rudi hopes that in the near future this program will return to its original purpose.

Considering that the current pandemic condition has subsided and people's mobility is moving towards normal.

"We hope that in the second semester the conditions will improve and this can be an initial mode for training. We also do not limit who wants to join this program. However, the target is for people who want to be trained for re-skilling or up-skilling," he said.

According to Rudi, every year the Pre-Employment Card Program gets a capital of Rp. 10 trillion.

The funds are used to run a program to improve the ability of workers which for the past two years has been carried out online or online.

However, Rudi explained, the capital budget provided for the Pre-Employment Card Program could increase if the training was carried out offline.

"This quota will depend on the training for online or offline. If the training is offline, it will be bigger than what has been carried out for the past 2 years," he said.

Incentives for the Pre-Employment Card Program are Wrongly Targeted

For your information, the Pre-Employment Card program incentives to 119,494 participants valued at Rp. 289.85 billion were indicated to be mistargeted based on the report from the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) for the 2021 Semester Examination Results Summary (IHPS).

The Executive Director of the Pre-Employment Card PMO, Denni Puspa Purbasari, spoke about this. Denni said, BPK stated that the Pre-Employment Card was misdirected because it was given to workers with salaries above Rp. 3.5 million.

"The Chairperson of the BPK conveyed her statement that there were 119,000 recipients of Pre-Employment Cards worth Rp. 289 billion, which was not right on target, because their salaries and wages were above Rp. 3.5 million," said Denni.

Furthermore, Denni explained, the Rp3.5 million figure was based on the requirements for receiving employee wage subsidies (BSU) so that they did not overlap.

Meanwhile, in the Pre-Employment Card program, from the beginning the regulations were not specifically designed, how much salary are eligible to become participants.

"For example, there is a driver whose wages are IDR 4.5 million UMR, that's okay to then take training. So the Pre-Employment Card is open to everyone," he said.