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Govt eyes new law to solve contract civil servant issue
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Jakarta administration contract workers stage a rally in front of City Hall in Central Jakarta on Sept. 26, 2018, demanding permanent employment. (Via wartakota.tribunnews.com/FHK2I Koordinator Wilayah DKI Jakarta)
T
he government is planning to bring in sweeping changes to how state employees are managed through a state civil apparatus (ASN) bill, which it is hoped will provide better welfare for millions of non-permanent employees currently working in government offices.
According to a 2022 estimate from the National Civil Service Agency, there are around 2.3 million non-permanent workers currently in the government’s employ, most of whom had been assigned to regional administrations as stop-gap solutions to replace retiring civil servants.
Non-permanent workers, however, often suffer from lower wages, a lack of career development and the inability to access welfare benefits in comparison with their civil servant counterparts.
Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Azwar Anas said the ASN bill was expected to be a longer-term solution for the problem, along with introducing a number of new policies in how civil servants are recruited and managed.
The government is hoping the bill, which will supplant the existing 2014 Civil Servant Law, will be passed into law before Nov. 28, although formal deliberations between the government and lawmakers have yet to begin.
Nov. 28 is also the ambitious deadline set by the government to hire all non-permanent workers as official state employees with employment agreements, also known as PPPK.
Achieving the target has proved difficult due to lackluster recruitment drives over the past years, as regional administrations kept proposing lower quotas than the actual number of non-permanent workers, because of budgetary concerns.
