TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Govt to employ jobless, retirees in village cooperatives program
The government seeks to ask unemployed graduates to return to villages, who would later be provided with training.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Farmers plant rice in a paddy field at Lambaro, Aceh, on June 28, 2024. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
T
he state-backed village cooperative program is set to employ jobless and retirees to run an initiative that is aimed at improving rural economies, said Villages and Regional Development Minister Yandri Susanto.
Dubbed the Red and White village cooperative program, Yandri noted that the initiative would target the untapped potential of “unemployed graduates with bachelor’s degrees from villages that may be living in cities”.
The government sought to ask this group to return to villages. They would later be provided with training, he added.
“We will train [the graduates] to be managers or executors of Red and White cooperatives,” he said during a meeting broadcast on YouTube on Monday.
Furthermore, Yandri conveyed plans to also empower retirees, particularly those with professional experience, to join the program.
“Retirees from banks or other professionals. They could become the main resource for monitoring and implementation of the Red and White cooperatives,” he said.
President Prabowo Subianto signed presidential instruction (Inpres) No. 9/2025 on March 27 to accelerate the establishment of 80,000 cooperatives across the country, hoping this initiative could help strengthening “the nation’s self-reliance through sustainable food self-sufficiency and rural development”.
