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Omnibus law on job creation to offer fresh hope for migrant workers
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Key points in the omnibus bill on job creation. (JP/Aziz)
D
espite the controversy over the omnibus bill on job creation, the government has given an assurance that the bill will have a positive impact on migrant labor reform by allowing for a more streamlined bureaucracy to expedite a grand vision of improving conditions for Indonesians working overseas.
The Agency for the Protection of Migrant Workers (BP2MI) estimates that about 6 million Indonesians worked overseas last year, equivalent to nearly 5 percent of the country’s total workforce. Together they sent US$11 billion back to Indonesia in remittances in 2019.
However, this number represents only those who leave the country to work legally, meaning that there are thousands more who work illegally overseas and oftentimes these illegal, or nonprocedural, workers tend to be a source of problems.
The authorities in El Tari Airport in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), for example, stopped 966 nonprocedural workers from flying overseas in 2019, but many more managed to fly out, Kompas reported.
In 2019, an estimated 116 people from NTT died as illegal workers in Malaysia, which remains the favorite destination for Indonesian migrant workers.
Chairman of the Indonesian Labor Exporters' Association’s (Apjati) NTT branch, John Salmon Saragih, pointed to a lack of job opportunities in NTT as the reason why many illegal workers came from the province.
“People in NTT are wanderers, and there are [more] opportunities abroad. Also, the [foreign] employers like Indonesian workers,” he told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Friday.
