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mploying outsourced workers for non-core business activities could help reduce rising unemployment in the country, particularly among people with a relatively low educational background, experts have suggested.

According to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of unemployed people in Indonesia has reached 7.56 million as of August 2015, a 4 percent increase from the 7.24 million recorded a year earlier.

Official data also show that half of the country’s unemployed, or about 3.84 million people, only have a high school degree, followed by 2.37 million people of lower education and some 900,000 who have earned a diploma or undergraduate degree.

Given the limited work opportunities in Indonesia and the fact that around 60 percent of country’s 250 million people are in the productive age group, outsourcing could help absorb many workers, especially unskilled ones, Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) economist Enny Sri Hartati said.

Outsourcing companies, however, should also be willing to provide training for these unskilled workers and develop their potential without overlooking their rights, she added.

“If we look at the data, the largest group of unemployed is high school graduates who do not yet have skills or work experience,” she said on Friday.

“What workers need are job protection and certainty; if outsourcing companies provides these, then [the outsourcing method] would be less controversial.”

Outsourcing has become common practice in the country’s economy since the early 2000s. Many companies have been accused of hiring outsourced workers in an effort to reduce worker benefits.

This has sparked public criticism and triggered the issuance of Manpower and Transmigration Ministerial Decree No. 19/2012, which stipulates that outsourced workers can only be hired for five types of jobs, namely driving, security, catering, support and cleaning services.

M. Hadi Shubhan, a labor law expert from Surabaya-based Airlangga University, said the decree was unrealistic, because each business had a different type of core operation, making it necessary for companies to hire many types of outsourced workers, not just for the five activities stated in the regulation.

“In the telecommunication industry, for example, call center employees are key workers. Meanwhile, in the transportation industry, it is drivers who play the key role,” he said.

To ensure that outsourced workers receive proper employment benefits, such as health insurance coverage, the government should closely supervise outsourcing companies, Hadi said.

“If the government can enforce strict regulations for these outsourcing companies, unemployment could be reduced, which in the end will improve the country’s competitiveness, just like India for instance,” he said, referring to the country whose information technology — business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry generated revenue of US$122 billion in 2012. (win)