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igrant worker agency BNP2TKI opened a job fair on Monday, presenting 10,000 vacancies in the formal sector abroad for skilled workers.

Thirty-four companies, including banks, insurance firms, private placement companies (PPTKIS) and foreign labor training agencies, participated in the two-day job fair, which started on Monday.

At the job fair, migrant worker candidates could get information on vacancies in several countries like Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Candidates were invited to take part in consultations and to fill out registration forms.

“We hope that this job fair event allows us to recruit skilled or semi-skilled legal workers to be placed in formal sectors abroad. This way, we can guarantee the safety of our migrant workers,” BNP2TKI head Jumhur Hidayat said.

Indonesia suspended sending workers abroad to work as domestic laborers, due to a rise in workplace abuse cases. In an effort to better protect the migrant workers, the government now only recruits and dispatches workers for formal sector jobs via legal procedures.

Jumhur said that his office had seen an increase in migrant worker candidates every year because the income was good, and job opportunities in Indonesia were limited.

This year, the South Sulawesi administration targeted to send 20,000 workers abroad. According to South Sulawesi governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo, as of June this year, the province had dispatched 7,000 workers. The job fair is expected to fulfill the target.

Syahrul said that the number of migrant workers sent abroad had been increasing from year to year. In the beginning, the province only dispatched 400 workers, and then the next year it sent 1,000 workers and in the next 2,000. Last year, the province dispatched 4,000 workers abroad.

“All of the workers that we send work in the formal sector because we stopped sending migrant workers for domestic or the non-formal sector a long time ago,” he said.

Jumhur said that the opinion that the state had to provide job opportunities for its citizens was an old model of thinking and development planning. He said that workers had to make good use of every job opportunity, including those available abroad.

“Wherever there is an opportunity, that is where we should make a move. Migration is a usual occurrence. If people do not move, they will become a burden because the ratio of job opportunities to job seekers is unbalanced,” Jumhur said.

He said that there were countries that needed workers to improve development and there were countries that needed many jobs. If there was no labor supply, countries needing labors would stop developing, while countries with a large proportion of productive people would have an over supply of workers. Therefore, both countries needed each other, he added.

“Indonesia has a potential in manpower. There is nothing wrong if we channel them to the countries in need. It would be a great loss for both countries if they did not cooperate,” he said.

During the job fair, Jumhur presented an award to the governor for decreasing the number of illegal migrant workers from the province and turning them into legal ones.

Previously the province was one of the biggest sources of illegal migrant workers, particularly to
Malaysia.

The illegal migrant workers were dispatched via the Pare-pare Port, sometimes numbering 10,000
per year.

The agency and the administration also signed a cooperation on an online system to connect migrant worker candidates living in the regencies. The system, which is targeted to be completed by September or October this year, is aimed at reducing the number of illegal migrant workers.