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Overseas demand for Indonesian workers stays high
The ongoing global financial crisis will not reap havoc on the demand for Indonesian migrant workers, particularly in Kuwait, the United States and Canada, an official said
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The ongoing global financial crisis will not reap havoc on the demand for Indonesian migrant workers, particularly in Kuwait, the United States and Canada, an official said.
According to the promotion director of Manpower Replacement and Protection (BNP2TKI) Endang Sulistyaningsih, opportunity for Indonesian laborers to work abroad remains high, with the U.S. and Canada in need of about one million nurses and care-givers.
"I just came back from the U.S., and they said they are seeking up to one million nurses before 2020," Endang told Antara.
Endang added that the demand for care-givers in the U.S. and Canada was on the rise due to the huge population of elderly citizens.
"Opportunities for our citizens to work abroad remain high, but the biggest challenge comes from language proficiency. We still lag behind the Philippines, India, and Bangladesh, but only because English is an official language in those countries," she said.
On its official website (www.Bnptki2.go.id), BNP2TKI said that, through a private manpower recruitment company, Kuwait had requested 12,000 nurses from Indonesia for 2009.
"This is a hard work to deal with in 2009," BNP2TKI head Muh. Jumhur Hidayat said, after a meeting with the company's chief executive in Kuwait on Monday.
According to the latest data from the Central Statistics Bureau there are 5 million Indonesian migrant workers across the world. The bureau has predicted the number will grow by 700,000 to 1 million next year.
BNP2TKI data showed that the total combined remittance of migrant workers increased from US$3.42 billion in 2006 to $5.84 billion last year. In the first four months of 2008, the figure already stood at $2.23 billion.
Canada is deemed the best potential market for Indonesian workers. Yonas Karyanto, the general manager of labor supplier PT Yonasindo Intra Pratama, said Tuesday that, at the end of the year, the North American country had requested 500 skilled Indonesian workers. The company has managed to send just 15 people so far, as the rest failed to meet the Canadian Embassy's qualifications.
Yonas said Canadian employers would pay their Indonesian employees salary equal to that given to local workers. (iwp)
