Ministry Of Manpower Encourages Competency Improvement Of Female Workers Through BLK

Ida Fauziyah/Photo: Antara

JAKARTA - The Minister of Manpower (Menaker) Ida Fauziyah said the ministry she leads continues to try to improve the competence and quality of female workers to encourage absorption in the workforce, one of which is through training in job training centers (BLK).

"It takes maximum effort to improve competence, especially for our prospective workers. In what way? We ensure competency improvement and training through BLK, both central and local government BLKs as well as community BLKs," said Minister of Manpower Ida in a virtual discussion at the Merdeka Barat Forum 9 ( FMB9) which was followed from Jakarta, Monday, April 11.

She said to encourage the absorption of labor requires female workers to have the required competencies. With competence, the opportunities that workers have will be higher.

In improving competence through training at BLK, Ida said, both male and female workers have the same opportunity to participate.

By participating in the competency training, she said, the opportunities for female workers to enter the labor market will be more open.

According to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the open unemployment rate (TPT) for women in 2021 is lower than men, namely 6.11 percent for women and 6.74 percent for men.

The female labor force participation rate (TPAK), according to her, although still below that of men, also increased from 53.13 percent in 2020 to 53.34 percent in 2021. While male TPAK was 82.41 percent in 2020, which fell to 82.27 percent in 2021.

The Minister of Manpower also explained that the Ministry of Manpower also continues to strive to improve protection for women workers, one of which is by carrying out the "National Movement for Non-Discrimination in the Workplace", either through the creation of an IT-based protection system, the preparation of guidelines for preventing sexual harassment, as well as the preparation of equality and non-discrimination guidelines in the workplace.

"The Ministry of Manpower also encourages commitment from companies to include non-discrimination agreements for workers in company regulations (PP) and collective labor agreements (PKB) involving workers and employers," said Ida Fauziyah.