As a response and support to the newly established office of Indonesia’s Labour Market Information Center (LMIC), the ILO and the Ministry of Manpower jointly organized a webinar series from December 2021 to February 2022. These webinar series aimed to discuss the need of robust and coherent policy and strategy as well as effective mechanism and accessibility to all beneficiaries, including vulnerable groups, in developing public employment services (PES) to Indonesian workers.

Michiko Miyamoto, Country Director of the ILO in Indonesia, opened these series of webinars by emphasizing the crucial role of PES as a part of integrated support for the unemployed. PES also could help addressing skill mismatches and unemployment, particularly for young people. “The PES can serve as a support system for the unemployed through career counselling, labour market information, reference for suitable vocational training programme, apprenticeship opportunities and job matching,” said Michiko.

Consisting of three webinars, these series focused on the discussions around data integration and building partnerships for demand-driven skills development training and effective job matching as well as important elements of building effective PES. The series also presented relevant resource persons from tripartite stakeholders, international experts as well as youth representatives to share their knowledge and perspectives on how to build partnerships and develop an integrated database needed.

Highlights of the webinar series

The first webinar: “Public Employment Service: Current development and future direction”

Held in December 2021, it explored how LMIC could leverage data integration for better employment services in Indonesia. The session also invited expert from Hello Work of Japan and Korean Employment Information Service (KEIS) to share good practices on digitalizing labour market data and enhancing job counsellor capacity to provide effective assistant to jobseekers.


The second webinar: “Building a mechanism of linkage and partnership for quality PES”

Conducted in January 2022, the webinar highlighted the important synergy between trade unions and employers’ organization in future policy direction and in building a solid partnership for effective implementation of quality PES. Anwar Sanusi, Secretary General of the Ministry of Manpower, in his opening remarks said, “The Job Market Center would be a place for manpower supply and demand to meet that requires a synergy between employers and jobseekers.”


The third webinar: “Accessing database and services of PES for job matching”

Organized in February 2022, the webinar discussed challenges faced by young jobseekers and the needs for skills development and employment services. Christine Natalia from Independent Youth Alliance (ARI) hoped that the Job Market Center could provide various training courses, including soft skills as well as information and communication technology skills so that young jobseekers, particularly in rural area, could keep up with the current employment trend.

In addition, the webinar also presented a private employment services provider, Maukerja.id to share how to engage industry sectors to better understand job and skills demands. Lastly, the Director of Job Introduction Service explained about the database and the role of job counsellors to help matching jobs with jobseekers’ skills and education background.

Support of the ILO

Tauvik Muhammad, ILO’s project manager for skills development, stated that the webinars were part of the ILO’s commitment to continuously support to the development of Indonesia’s PES. “The ILO provides technical advices, training programmes and facilitation to social dialogues to ensure the synergy and partnership between industries, workers and government that are needed to deliver the services to everyone in need in timely manner,” he said.

Through its Japan funded project of Industry Skills for Inclusive Growth (InSIGHT) phase 2, the ILO has generated several knowledge products and facilitated social dialogues to foster industry demand responsive skills development system, promote digital and distance learning and link skills development and labour market policies.

The ILO has also generated two training packages (practical and theoretical) for PES staff members who play a key role in reintegrating unemployed to job market through its Unemployment Protection in Indonesia (UNIQLO) project, funded by the Fast Retailing Co., Ltd.