Jakarta (ANTARA) - Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah has urged Indonesian migrant worker placement companies (P3MI) to take measures to boost the language proficiency of Indonesian migrant workers (PMIs) because many countries welcome them for their work ethics and quality.

However, the potential to send PMIs to more countries cannot be optimized if issues regarding their lack of language skills are not addressed, she said.

"I ask all of you, if our problem is in language capability, let us toil to address the issue," Fauziyah said while opening a meeting on strengthening migrant workers' placement and protection governance on Monday.

She highlighted that while Indonesian migrant workers have good potential to find employment in Germany, most have limited command of the German language.

Further, most of the workers need to study German for at least eight to 12 months to reach standard language proficiency, the minister noted.

Fauziyah said the issue should be addressed properly since opportunities provided by Indonesia's demographic dividend, which is estimated to peak in 2030, should be optimized.

Meanwhile, other countries are suffering from demographic aging, wherein the growth of the elderly population is outstripping that of the younger population, she said.
"If we better prepare the language competencies of our migrant workers, I believe we can optimize all opportunities that we have," she added.

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Translator: Prisca Triferna V, Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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