12 Mei 2007
JAKARTA, May 12 (Xinhua) -- About 10 million people in Indonesia's work force are currently still unemployed, so it is necessary for the government and other parties in the country to engage in serious efforts to change their fate, Indonesian Manpower and Transmigration Minister Erman Suparno said.
Addressing the launching of a National Movement to Tackle Unemployment (GNPP) in the resort island of Bali on Friday, the minister said "Not only the government but all concerned parties must take part in efforts to solve this unemployment problem," Antara news agency reported on Saturday.
He said in 2006, the government was able to help one million jobless people find work in various fields, including in foreign countries.
He did not mention the number of Indonesian workers who had been placed overseas but said his office would ease the procedures and system so far used to send workers overseas.
In the future, people who were going to work abroad would no longer need to pay various kinds of fiscal and administrative levies before leaving the country.
"We will revoke all the regulations on which those levies are based," he said, adding that thereby the total amount of pre-departure costs would-be migrant workers had to bear would be cut by 40 percent.
Editor: Pliny Han
