Coordinating Minister Airlangga: Pre-Employment Card Program Supports Indonesia's Vision Of Gold 2045

JAKARTA - Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto stressed that the government is committed to continuing to provide programs to improve the capabilities and skills of national human resources (HR) to support Indonesia's vision of a golden 2045.

One of them is through the Pre-Employment Card Program.

Furthermore, Airlangga said, the Pre-Employment Card is one of the government's mainstay programs to improve people's abilities and skills to enter the world of work and business.

Airlangga said the Pre-Employment Card Program itself was in great demand.

This is evidenced by the number of participants accepted in the Pre-Employment Card Program as many as 11.4 million people in 2020 and 2021.

Based on a survey by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in February, 84.18 percent of participants admitted that the Pre-Employment Card can improve work skills.

The General Chairperson of the Golkar Party also hopes that the community can take advantage of the program to increase their capabilities, insight, and networking in doing business.

"This is a positive achievement, and the government is committed to continuing to provide skill-building programs like this to accelerate the ability of national human resources. This is in accordance with Indonesia's Golden Vision 2045," he said in Jakarta, Thursday, July 21.

Meanwhile, Head of the Population Research Center of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Nawawi revealed that the Pre-Employment Card is one of the supporters to achieve the vision of Indonesia Gold 2045.

He said the Pre-Employment Card exists to prepare Indonesian workforce human resources to be able to compete in the labor market.

"It must be embedded because we are in the context of preparing our workforce, we are faced with the problem of over supply, where we have too many workers while the economic capacity to absorb them is still limited," he explained.

"So with this program, it can automatically increase their capacity, our workers, so that they are also expected to be able to compete," continued Nawawi.

Nawawi believes that in order to achieve the vision of Indonesia Gold 2045, qualified human resources are needed. Not only unskilled workers but also skilled workers.

He said these capabilities must be improved.

"So this is part of the design of how we can improve the skills capacity of our workers," he said.

According to Nawawi, the Pre-Employment Card program is based on the spirit to prepare independent workers.

This is needed to address the gap between labor and employment.

The capacity of the workforce and the labor force is so large that the absorption capacity of the economy is still limited. Then shifted towards semi-social assistance (bansos) due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"With the Pre-Employment Card, it can create new independent workers who are not dependent on the limited labor market. That's the idea. Now entering semi-social assistance as a result of the impact of the pandemic, many people have lost their jobs," he said.

Nawawi also appreciates the government's commitment to continue the program.

The reason, according to Nawawi, Pre-Employment Card requires a lot of funds.

"In the context of Indonesia, because we are a developing country, we have a program like this. Because the challenge for developing countries is how to fund this program. And this fund is not small but very large. The government's commitment to implementing this program, I really appreciate, regardless of the problems in field that we often hear about," he concluded.