[Kabar-indonesia] 40 Million Jobless and Barely a Peep from SBY [+Civil Servants]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: JP: SBY promises raise for civil servants 

The Jakarta Post
Friday, August 18, 2006

Op-Ed

The Real State of the Nation Is 40 million Jobless! 

Endy M. Bayuni, Jakarta

The real state of the nation, supposedly the content of Tuesday's speech by 
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, could have been summarized in just 
10 words: Over 40 million people in Indonesia are out of work.

In his two-hour speech before the House of Representatives, which was 
broadcast live nationally, the President gave us a rundown of the challenges facing 
the country, and how he and his government intends to overcome them. 

Delivered on the eve of Indonesia's 61st Independence Day, the speech was 
nothing more than a list of things to do. It lacked focus on the biggest problem 
of all, and thereby vision and direction about where this nation is heading. 

No. It's not terrorism or even natural disasters and their handling that 
should consume our attention the most. It's not the threat to our nation's 
pluralism, either, although this could easily come a distant second. 

When all things are considered, unemployment must count as the biggest and 
foremost problem that this nation, with government leadership, needs to tackle 
seriously in the coming years. 

The President in his speech put the jobless rate at 10.4 percent, down from 
11.2 percent a year ago. But he was referring to what officials conveniently 
define as "open unemployment": People of working age who are actively seeking 
work. 

The use of this definition, a practice dating back to the Soeharto years, is 
clearly designed to mislead the public and thus spare the government from 
having to address the issue completely. 

The penchant for using percentages rather than absolute numbers is also 
designed to make Indonesia's unemployment record look decent as it puts us on par 
with many developing and developed countries. But let's not forget that even 
10.4 percent of the workforce in Indonesia amounts to a staggering figure of 
more than 10 million people. 

Rubbing salt into the wound, the government statisticians who compile the 
unemployment figures define a person as having a gainful employment if he 
or she works for more than two hours a week. 

Indonesia's unemployment figure is certainly far higher than the government 
would have us believe. One figure that has been suggested as representing the 
true level 
of unemployment (including underemployment) in Indonesia is 40 million. This 
is 
the figure that many government agencies and international organizations 
refer to. 

Even then, we are still probably understating the problem. 

One only needs to look around. Unless you are a close or distant relative of 
the Soeharto clan, you will likely have a brother or sister, a nephew or 
niece, or 
someone close who is unemployed. And most likely, they have been without 
work for some time with little prospect of finding a job anytime soon. 

But one should not dwell too much on numbers and definitions. Suffice to say 
that there are a hell of a lot of people without jobs, enough to put the 
problem at the top 
of the list in any speech addressing the state of the nation for years to 
come. 

Most of the other problems Indonesia faces can be traced to unemployment: 
mass poverty, lack of access to healthcare and education, soaring crime rates, 
and even some incidences of communal unrest. Some of these problems would be 
significantly alleviated or even disappear if we could create more jobs, put 
money in people's pockets and restore their dignity. 

Because of our failure to tackle the roots of the problem, the government 
ends up paying huge subsidies on healthcare, schooling, rice rations, fuel and 
other basic needs. 

More and more, we seem to be giving people the fish rather than the fishing 
rod. 

Just think of the contribution to the economy (or as economists say, to our 
gross domestic product) if all of these 40 million people were gainfully 
employed. Instead, these jobless men and women have become a taxing burden on the 
working population. 

This was only President Yudhoyono's second state-of-the-nation address since 
taking the helm in 2004. Once again, he failed to capitalize on the high level 
of goodwill and patriotic sentiment prevailing among people celebrating 
Independence Day this week. 

He could have learned from many great orators of the past, including our own 
Sukarno, on how to use such grand occasions as an Independence Day to inspire 
and mobilize people to rally behind them and their visions, and to support 
their policies. 

The problem of unemployment is for the nation together to tackle. It is not 
the responsibility of the government alone, but the President is expected to 
provide 
the necessary leadership and direction. 

This he did not do this week, in spite of the opportunity presented. 

The writer is chief editor of The Jakarta Post. 

-------------------------------------------

The Jakarta Post
Friday, August 18, 2006

SBY promises raise for civil servants 

M. Taufiqurrahman and Ridwan Max Sijabat, 
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Civil servants nationwide have reason to celebrate, with another salary 
increase likely thanks to a larger allocation in the 2007 draft state budget 
presented Wednesday.

In his state-of-the-nation address to the House of Representatives, President 
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government would increase spending for 
paying civil servants by 23.3 percent starting next January. 

"The increase is part of the support given by the state budget toward 
bureaucratic reform," Yudhoyono said in his speech before first plenary session of 
the 2006-2007 sitting session of the House. 

Under the law, the president is required to give a state address every year 
on Aug. 16, one day before Independence Day. 

Many observers contend that low remuneration of civil servants is partly to 
blame for the notoriously corrupt bureaucracy. 

Yudhoyono said the increase would be used to pay for an increase in salaries 
of active civil servants and pensions of retirees, an annual extra month's pay 
as well as a variety of benefits. 

The increase is also expected to cover the salary of over 50,000 newly 
recruited civil servants and a new scheme for food provisions for members of the 
Indonesia Military (TNI) and the police force. 

In the draft of the 2007 state budget, the government is expected to increase 
the allocation for salaries and benefits of civil servants by almost 25 
percent to Rp 54.6 trillion (US$6 billion), from total spending for civil servants 
of Rp 98.5 trillion. The latter is an increase of 23 percent from last year's 
figure. 

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said Wednesday that a 15 percent 
increase could be expected next year for the salary of civil servants in the 
country. 

"The salary raise will be at least Rp 100,000 for the civil servant at the 
lowest level, or will contribute to total take-home pay of a little less than Rp 
1 million," she said. 

The amount of the raise was about the same as they received this year, she 
added. 

The proposed increase must be approved by the House budgetary commission. 

In January, the government increased the salaries of civil servants, TNI and 
the police by 20 percent. It was the first increase put the salaries of lower 
echelon civil servants on par with minimum regional wages set for workers in 
the private sector. 

There are currently about six million civil servants, in addition to some 
500,000 soldiers and 125,000 police officers. 

The government has also repeatedly said the increase was part of the plan to 
improve the government conditions of civil servants, soldiers and police 
officers, many of whom subsist on income below the regional minimum wage. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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