Minister of Manpower Ida Fauziyah has ensured that distribution of the 2021 Wage Subsidy Assistance (BSU) will be expedited for workers, as it was disbursed to 7,163,043 people so far.

In her statement received here on Thursday, Fauziyah spoke of having signed Minister of Manpower Regulation (Permenaker) Number 21 of 2021 on the Second Amendment to Permenaker Number 14 of 2020 on Guidelines for Providing Government Assistance in the Form of Subsidies for Salaries/Wages for Workers/Laborers in Handling the Impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The regulation has expanded the number of 2021 BSU recipients on account of some unused BSU budget in this year.

“This BSU expansion is conducted to ensure more effective utilization of the remaining 2021 BSU budget, so that it can encourage the achievement of BSU targets as an effort to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the economic sector,” the minister remarked.

The ministry has compiled data of 8,283,364 prospective 2021 BSU recipients from the Social Security Program (BPJS) Employment data. As many as 517,120 people of the total recipients are workers, who become BSU recipients after the expansion is conducted.

The minister explained that workers failing to meet requirements to be recipients of wage subsidies were partly due to the duplication of data with other social assistance or government assistance programs, such as the Pre-Employment Card Program, Family Hope Program (PKH), and the productive aid for micro-enterprises (BPUM) program.

Fauziyah pointed out that the data of as many as 392,018 recipients had yet to be fixed.

“We are optimistic that distribution of the 2021 BSU would run smoothly and help workers or laborers affected by COVID-19,” she remarked.

Source: Antara News