The increase happened after the moratorium of Indonesian workers placement to Saudi Arabia as of August 1, 2011.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Head of the Indonesian Workers Placement and Protection Agency (BNP2TKI) Moh Jumhur Hidayat said the number of formal workers placement overseas had increased to 44 pct in the August 1 to 16, 2011 period.

"The increase happened after the moratorium of Indonesian workers placement to Saudi Arabia as of August 1, 2011," Jumhur said in Jakarta on Friday.

He said that 44 pct of the 16,903 workers placed in 54 countries from August 1 to 16, 2011, or 7,457 are formal workers, or 56 pct or 9,446 are informal workers.

BNP2TKI, he said, targeted the ratio of placement of formal and informal workers this year to reach 50:50.

Jumhur said the BNP2TKI has been trying its best in the overseas placement of formal workers because they are better guaranteed and protected because they are working with the users or business entities, with a clear-cut contract, protected under the labour law, objective employment relations, and higher pay.

In the meantime, he said, the government is gradually reducing and even stopping the placement of informal workers because they are prone to irregularities and the employment relations with the users or employees are subjective, inclined to be closed, because of the 24 hours work at home and not secured by the law on labor affairs.

BNP2TKI noticed an increase in the number of formal workers not only because of the moratorium on the placement of informal workers in Saudi Arabia, and the tightening of departure of self-sufficient or professional workers by way of the issuance of the overseas workers card (KTKLN) at the Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Cengkareng, Banten, and at Juanda international airport in Surabaya.

The self-sufficient or professional workers, he said, cannot leave the country from other airports before obtaining the KTKLN at the Workers Placement and Protection Service Agency (BP3TKI) or local Workers Placement and Protection Service Post (P4TKI) first.

"Each worker must have a KTKLN under Law No 39 of 2004 on Workers Placement and Protection Overseas," the BNP2TKI head said.

In addition, Jumhur said, the cause of an increase in the number of formal workers placement is the fact that some workers are on leave or having their contracts extended and are going home to Indonesia who had not been registered at KTKLN.

The head of BNP2TKI said with the issuance of the KTKLN, the distribution of workers could be monitored or printed by BNP2TKI and in case of a problem overseas, it could be easily settled because they would be easily located.

In the meantime data of the Research and Information Center (Puslitfo) of BNP2TKI had the details on the number of workers placement in 2011 from January to August 16 reaching 316,796 consisting of 111,145 formal workers (35 pct) and 205,651 informal workers (65 pct).

The number of overseas workers placement in 2010 reached 575,804 consisting of 158,363 formal workers (28 pct) and 417,441 informal workers (72 pct).

The number of workers placement abroad in 2009 reached 632,172 consisting of 103,918 formal workers (16 percent) and 528,254 informal workers (84 pct).

The number of workers placement overseas in 2008 reached 644,731 consisting of 212,413 formal workers (33 pct) and 432,318 informal workers (67 pct). (*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2011