Vice President Ma’ruf Amin on Wednesday emphasized the urgent need for strengthening social protection for workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While delivering his remarks at the G20 Labor and Employment Ministers’ Meeting (G20-LEMM), which he joined virtually from Jakarta, Amin said that one of the best ways to strengthen workers’ social protection is by ensuring the fulfillment of their rights through adaptive assistance and support, based on the prevailing conditions.
“The adaptive assistance and support in Indonesia is part of the National Economic Recovery Program, in the form of the Wage Subsidy Assistance Program, the Pre-Work Card Program, the Micro Business Productive Assistance Program, and the Labor Intensive Program at Ministries/Institutions and Local Governments,” the Vice President noted, according to a press release issued by the Manpower Ministry’s public relations bureau.
In addition to direct assistance, Amin highlighted the importance of strengthening workers’ innovation and literacy capabilities, particularly in areas that will create new jobs in the future, such as digital technology and the green economy.
Innovation and digitalization are expected to be critical assets in facing increasingly rapid global competition.
“For example, the Indonesian government is continuing to improve the digital literacy of MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprise) actors to achieve the target of 30 million MSMEs entering the digital ecosystem by 2024,” he noted.
Meanwhile, from the aspect of capability, Amin emphasized the significance of increasing skills as part of efforts to improve the competitiveness of Indonesian human resources (HR) at the national and global levels. These efforts can involve continuous skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling, among other things.
“In this regard, Indonesia continues to build Community Work Training Centers to meet the vocational training needs by collaborating with the government and the private sector/industry and academia/higher education,” he added.
The G20 LEMM was attended by manpower ministers from G20 countries, ministers of invited countries, heads of international institutions, and also several chairs of engagement groups.
Source: Antara News