Government Officially Opens Batch 12 Of The Pre-employment Card Program

Job applicant illustration. (Photo: Doc. Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs)

JAKARTA - The government, through the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, has officially rolled out the batch 12 pre-employment cards (Prakerja) program for the 2021 period.

Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that the first program being implemented this year targets to attract 600.000 participants.

"For 2021, the government hopes that the Prakerja cards can reach 2.7 million people with a budget of IDR 10 trillion", he said in a virtual press conference, Tuesday, February 23.

Airlangga added that the incentives received by workers who took part in this program were worth IDR 3.55 million. Meanwhile, the details are training costs of IDR 1 million, cash incentive assistance of IDR 2.4 million given for 4 months, and survey incentives of IDR 50,000 for three survey filling periods.

"The requirements are the same as last year", he said.

Although broadly speaking, the flow of program utilization and the requirements required are not different from the 2020 period, starting this year the government requires potential participants to create accounts first in the selection process.

For information, the Prakerja Card program is one of the government's strategies to counteract the impact of the economic worsening as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the labor sector.

In 2020, 43 million people registered for this program. Of these, 5.5 million people successfully passed the selection and participated in a series of virtual training.

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani emphasized that the 2021 Prakerja Card budget is allocated IDR 20 trillion by the end of the year.