Prepare Your Skills, Minister Of P2MI Karding Brings Good News For Those Interested In Work Abroad

P2MI Minister Abdul Kadir Karding answered reporters' questions in Temanggung, Friday (22/11/2024) (ANTARA/Heru Suyitno)

JAKARTA - Minister of Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (P2MI) Abdul Kadir Karding admitted that he received many requests from Indonesian Migrant Workers from a number of countries. One of them is from Japan which asks for as many as 70 thousand migrant workers.

"This is only Japan this year asking for 70 thousand (PMI), we have only filled around 14 thousand (workers)," said Minister Karding while attending the commemoration of the 48th Anniversary of the South Sulawesi Family Harmony (KKSS) at the JS Luwansa Hotel, South Jakarta, Saturday quoted via Antara, Monday, December 2.

In the KKSS Anniversary, Minister Karding invited young people from South Sulawesi who have skills and are interested in working abroad to register as migrant workers. Moreover, there is a fairly large salary offer from the placement country.

"So the demand is extraordinary. So in my opinion, our children at home have started having to be given choices from the start. The salary is large. Nurses for Canada (the salary is) 50 to 80 million rupiah. Graduates from high school, vocational schools to become fishermen, factory workers in Korea, 18 to 25 million. The capital is only Korean," said Minister Karding.

In addition, Minister Karding also emphasized the need for people who want to become PMI to follow applicable procedures, so that their existence is monitored and protected from the state.

He conveyed this appeal considering that PMIs who work abroad non-procedurally, or often called illegal, are prone to problems.

"So we have 5,076,000 registered migrant workers in 100 destination countries. While those who are not registered, do not register, people say they are illegal, according to the Bank Indonesia survey there are 5,400,000, many," he said.

"This is a vulnerable one, it's unprocedural, the skills are a little almost non-existent, the language doesn't understand, these are prone to problems," he said further.

In fact, Minister Karding said that the foreign exchange received by the state from PMI was quite large. Based on data in 2023, the total foreign exchange revenue was recorded at IDR 227 trillion.

For this reason, he emphasized the ministry's efforts to protect PMI, in accordance with the main tasks carried out by the Ministry of P2MI, namely protecting migrant workers, and creating job opportunities for other options abroad.

"Because actually this ministry was established for protection. Ensuring there is no exploitation and injustice to migrant workers," he said.