"This condition is the related to many factors such as the large population, the limited number of job opportunities in the formal sectors and the fact that the country`s natural resources have not yet been developed optimally," the minister said in his address at the graduation of a number of students of the Indonesian Islamic University of Yogyakarta on Saturday.
The minister said multiple efforts to create job opportunities needed to be made to solve the unemployment problem and improve the people`s economy. He said the government had set itself the target of lowering the unemployment rate from 7.14 percent now to 5.1 percent by 2014.
According to the minister, one of the ways to create job opportunities was developing entrepreneurship among the people. Muhaimin expressed hope that educational institutions in Indonesia would adjust their curricula with the demands of the manpower market so that newly graduated students could easily find jobs.
"Students must also improve their skills in independent entrepreneurship so that after graduation they will no longer seek jobs but be able to create jobs," said the minister.
Earlier, the government had announced it had set itself the target of reducing the unemployment rate by 0.5 percent from 7.5 percent in 2010 to 7 percent this year.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made the statement when giving the targets of national development in the 2011 government plan of action before all cabinet ministers, governors, district heads, and mayors at a working meeting last January.
Besides reducing the unemployment rate, President Yudhoyono said the government would also lower the poverty rate from 13 percent to about 12.5 or 11.5 percent this year.
"That is our target, to achieve it we should certainly have financial resources in our state budget," the president said. (*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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