Giving A Public Lecture At USU, Moeldoko Disbursed 2 Challenges To The Employment Sector

Presidential Chief of Staff (KSP) Moeldoko gave a public lecture at the University of North Sumatra (USU), Friday, March 1. (Ist)

MEDAN - Presidential Chief of Staff (KSP) Moeldoko said Indonesia still faces two major challenges in the labor sector.

First, the high number of young people who are not studying, working, or participating in training. Second, the discrepancy of skills between market needs and labor.

Moeldoko conveyed that young Indonesians aged 15-24 years who are not studying, working, or participating in training will reach 23.22 percent in 2022.

"One of the highest in ASEAN countries," said Moeldoko during a public lecture at the University of North Sumatra (USU), Friday, March 1.

As for the issue of skills incompatibility between market needs and labor, he said, this caused the unemployment rate for high school and Diploma graduates to remain high. With details, it reached 8.41 percent and 5.59 percent, respectively.

"It is important for us to understand the complexity of the mismatch skill and find collaborative solutions to overcome this problem," he said.

Furthermore, Moeldoko said that labor productivity is one of the keys for Indonesia Gold 2045. For this reason, workers must be proficient, adaptive, innovative, and able to fill the local and global labor markets.

Responding to these challenges, he continued, the government has accelerated the implementation of vocational education and training, strengthening reskilling and upskilling training, and integrating soft skills for the workforce to anticipate disruption.

In addition, he said, since 2020 the government has also launched a pre-employment card program which currently trains 17.5 million workforces. "This is all the government's effort to bring market needs closer to the workforce," he added.

On that occasion, Moeldoko who is also the Deputy Chair of the Job Creation Committee emphasized that currently the government is aggressively increasing investment in the country. One of the goals is to open the widest possible employment opportunities. For this reason, improving the skills and competence of Indonesian workers is a must so that employment opportunities can be filled by the nation's children.

"Don't just protest about the entry of foreign workers. We also have to improve our skills and competence," he said.