MEKK FEB UI Public Lecture Series, “The Role of the Pre-Employment Card Program in Supporting Economic Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic”
Nino Eka Putra ~ PR FEB UI
DEPOK – (16/92021) Executive Director of the Executive Management (PMO) of the Pre-Employment Card Program, Denni Puspa Purbasari, Ph.D., was a resource person in the Public Lecture Series of the Master of Population and Employment Economics (MEKK) FEB UI, with the topic “The Role of the Pre-Employment Card Program in Supporting Economic Recovery in the Covid-19 Pandemic Period” online, on Thursday (16/9/2021). This lecture is a course in the Indonesian Development Forum.
In her presentation, Denni Puspa Purbasari explained that at only 1.5 years, the Pre-Employment Card Program has had a significant impact in the midst of the difficult situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Since Wave 1 opened on April 11, 2020 until the announcement of Wave 20 recipients on September 15, 2021, this program has reached 10.6 million beneficiaries. The details are 5.5 million participants in 2020 and 5.1 million Pre-Employment Card recipients in 2021. On September 16, 2021, the new registration, namely Wave 21, accounted for 754,929 participants.
Citing data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2020, unemployment and poverty rates in Indonesia rose due to the pandemic. In 2016, the number of poor people in Indonesia was 27.76 million or 10.70 percent of the total population. That number continued to decline to 24.79 million or nearing 1 digit of the total population (9.22%). However, due to the pandemic, the number of poor people again increased to 27.55 million (10.19%).
Last year or at the beginning of Covid-19 in Indonesia, 29.12 million people of working age were affected, namely 2.56 million people stopped working, 1.77 million people temporarily did not work, and 24.03 million people received reduced working hours. In addition, there are 0.76 million people who are ‘mutung’ no longer working and not looking for work, or trying to start a business, partly because they see that there are too few job vacancies or that their sales are not making any money.
“Data from the Management of the Pre-Employment Card Program shows that 89% of the recipients of the Pre-Employment Card were unemployed when they registered for this program. Not only unemployed because of layoffs, but also those who are fresh graduates and are looking for work, including those who were “mutung”. This is where the Pre-Employment Card provides a solution not only for those affected by layoffs due to the pandemic, but also as a competency development program for job seekers and also workers who need competency improvement, including micro and small business players, Denni said.
Speaking in front of Masters Program students who specialize in employment, the challenge of employment in Indonesia is that many are not qualified from the supply side of the labor market. Of the current 135 million Indonesian workforce, 90 percent of them have never attended certified training. Similarly, the profile of our 7 million unemployed, 91 percent have never attended certified training.
“Unfortunately, both employers and our workers tend not to care about skilling, upskilling, and reskilling as an effort to improve the quality of the workforce,” Denni said.
From the individual perspective, citing World Bank research, workers place skills-building training at the bottom (10) of their personal spending priorities. “64 percent did not take part in skills improvement training because they felt that there was no training available that matched their interests and skills. Likewise, from the management side, companies also have very little budget for training for the development of its employees. Only 44 companies provide training to workers because they feel there is no need for it.” explained Denni. This condition indicates a market failure in producing an optimal level of job training. For this reason, the Pre-Employment Card Program is here to provide training scholarships even though, due to the pandemic situation, it also has a semi-social assistance nature.
“The Pre-Employment Card program has disrupted the job training market, from being top-down to on-demand. In addition, Pre-Employment revives the skills upgrading market. The hundreds of training institutions compete with each other to provide the best services and prices for consumers. Participating in pre-employment training is also proven to increase participants’ knowledge, which is indicated by the Pre-Test and Post-Test scores.” Denni said.
“The BPS survey results show that 91 percent of participants said their work skills had improved. This is in line with the evaluation of the Implementing Management where the participants’ Pre-Test scores increased from 59 to 73 during the Post-Test,” Denni stated in closing the session. (hjtp)
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