Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Ministry of Public Works and Housing will be certifying 750 thousand construction workers in the next five years so that they are recognized and easily get jobs.

The government is hoping to certify 200 thousand construction workers in 2017, Director General of Construction Yusid Toyib said here Monday.

"By 2017, contractors of all the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should have hired certified workers," Yusid noted.

If the SOEs still employed workers without certification, they should be certified first before being involved in a project.

The certification can be synergized between the government, enterprises, and contractors, to ease the financing, Yusid said.

In the early stages, the ministry will establish assessors and instructors from vocational school teachers, and lecturers in polytechnics, he added.

Of the estimated 7.4 million construction workers in Indonesia, only 6.5 percent of them have been certified.

The certification of construction workers is now a necessity to cope with a competitive era in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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