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As businesses automate, Indonesia struggles with skills training
Job needed: Employment seekers attend the Mega Career Expo in Balai Kartini, South Jakarta, in August 2013
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Job needed: Employment seekers attend the Mega Career Expo in Balai Kartini, South Jakarta, in August 2013. (JP/Nuhayati)
The government seems out of breath in running its vocation training centers as a shortage of funds and instructors staunches progress on a nationwide upskilling drive to prevent job losses from automation.
The Manpower Ministry’s director general for training and productivity supervision, Satrio Bambang Lelono, said Monday that only half of its 305 skill training centers (BLKs), which teach modules ranging from coding to cooking and from foreign languages to engineering, were considered to be in “good” shape.
A lack of instructors was the primary reason for others being deemed mediocre or poor, as fewer than 3,000 instructors at state-run and regional BLKs in 2019 were not even half of the 8,000 instructors needed.
“It’s tremendously difficult to fill [vacant posts] with civil servants,” said Satrio, who once managed a BLK in Serang, Banten. The situation was much worse in the past, however. Manpower Ministry data show that only a fifth of 276 province-run centers were deemed in “good” condition in 2016.
The nationwide training program is seen as necessary to prepare the country’s workforce for a changing job market as employers have been complaining about a yawning skills gap in Indonesia. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will only speed up the automation trend and jeopardize jobs security in the country.
As AI-enabled automation increases, as many as 120 million workers in the world’s 12 largest economies, including Indonesia, may need to participate in reskilling programs in the next three years, according to a recent study released by IBM’s Institute for Business Value.
Acknowledging the need for reskilling, Satrio said unsupportive conditions were hampering government efforts. For one, provincial leaders failed to support the much-needed skill training centers across Indonesia in guiding new instructors, resulting in their quick departure. He also acknowledged that some tutors simply chose to change jobs after a few years of experience and taking advantage of temporary incentives.
Scarce funding also made it hard to sustain the centers, with at least five regional authorities in eastern Indonesia requesting to give up their BLKs to the ministry in 2018.
Satrio said last year that each province needed at least Rp 100 billion (US$7.1 million) to build one center. The ministry has also said that BLK maintenance used up most of the Rp 2.2 trillion allocated for Satrio’s unit in 2018.
“But there will always be a deficit. That’s why our policy direction is to collaborate with industries to fill the gap,” he argued.
Recently, the ministry joined heads with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) to form a National Vocational Training Committee for teaming up with the private sector.
In cyberspace, tech giants from Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the United States to China’s Alibaba, Huawei and TikTok have been working alongside the government and local communities to scale up their digital training so that more Indonesians can be equipped with skill for the digital age.
To extend its reach, the ministry has formed community-based BLKs with the aim to educate community leaders to spearhead job training programs for specific skills in their respective communities. Satrio said the plan was to form 1,000 such centers this year and 2,000 more next year across Indonesia, far more ambitious than the 50 set up in 2017 and 75 in 2018.
Kadin vice chairman for manpower and industrial relations Anton J. Supit called for more intense collaboration of all stakeholders to brace for the so-called “Industry 4.0” concept endorsed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
For instance, the Industry Ministry could provide data on the kinds of jobs the Manpower Ministry as well as the Education and Culture Ministry should focus on as businesses join in their field training.
As head of the National Vocational Training Committee, Anton has been working with the ministry to formulate a master plan to complement coordination between stakeholders, which he said was near completion as of Monday.
That step was crucial, he said, as Indonesia was entering the initial stage of the much-vaunted demographic dividend, which is expected to peak in 2030, when the working age group will reach 70 percent of the total population.
But failure to reap the benefits of the huge working age group and adapt to technological change could lead to skyrocketing unemployment, he warned.
“We first talked about the demographic dividend around 10 years ago, but we now have little time left,” Anton said. “So we need a skill system that runs well. The key is coordination.”
International labor federation UNI Global Union Asian Pacific information and communication technology services director Kun Wardana Abyoto also said labor unions could jump on the bandwagon if they united for the common cause and moved past the minimum wage debacle.
He gave the example of Singapore’s NTUC, which had teamed up with the government to provide career coaching and digital certification programs to bolster vocational training.
