Enhancing COVID-19 Prevention at and through Workplaces: Job creation through Business Re-opening and Continuation

The project aims to enhance COVID-19 prevention measures at and through workplaces amidst of the pandemic that will facilitate business re-opening, continuation and expansion.

Background

COVID-19 pandemic has affected over 29 million workers in Indonesia as of August 2020, adding to the existing pool of about 7 million jobseekers who face significant difficulties in finding a job. Results of the labour force survey of August 2020 reveal that 2.6 million workers lost their jobs due to the public health crisis. As many as 24 million workers suffered from cuts in hours of work and wages, suppressing the average wage by 5.2 per cent between August 2019 and the same month in 2020.

As the public health crisis prolongs, economic activities remain subdued, leaving a considerable impact on the labour market and welfare of people. While the COVID-19 vaccination brings hope of economic recovery, labour market recovery often lags behind an economic upswing by a few years. Thus, it is an urgent to save and create jobs for Indonesia to emerge from COVID-19 crisis stronger and productive. Since the majority of workers and their family members rely on income from work for their livelihoods and welfare, maintaining economic activities while reducing infection risks at workplaces to the best we can is of crucial importance in Indonesia.

Objectives 

Against this backdrop, the project  aims to enhance COVID-19 prevention measures at and through workplaces amidst of the pandemic with the funding support of the Government of Japan. For instance, occupational safety and health (OSH) doctors will advise infection risk reduction at 1,500 workplaces using risk assessment tools that the ILO and the Indonesian Medical Association for Occupational Health (IDKI) have developed for the project.

This project will also strengthen the capacities of relevant government officials, enterprises, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) professionals, and workers to respond to today’s COVID-19 pandemic and future public health crises, and to address other OSH challenges.

These efforts will facilitate business re-opening, continuation and expansion, which will help maintain jobs and create new ones. During the pandemic and in the era of post-COVID-19, economic growth and job creation cannot be achieved without paying due attention to OSH.

This project is implemented in the framework of the ILO flagship Programme Safety + Health for All that aims at improving the safety and health of workers throughout the world. Contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in reducing the incidence of fatal and non-fatal work-related accidents and diseases, the programme supports governments, employers, workers and other key stakeholders in developing and implementing solutions that work locally, and can be scaled globally, to create exponential improvements wherever they are needed.

Main Activities

The project achieves results through the activities described below:

  1.  Assess risks of virus transmission and improve COVID-19 prevention measures at workplace: The project asses COVID-19 infection risks and prevention measures at 1,500+ workplaces using the assessment tools. OSH doctors will advise enterprises based on the assessment results and help generate action plans to improve COVID-19 prevention measures at the workplaces.
  2. Capacity building of stakeholders on public health crisis response and Occupational Safety and Health (OSH): The project promotes knowledge sharing and raises awareness of good OSH practices and COVID-19 prevention measures at workplaces through webinars, information kits, and workshops.

Outputs

Enhanced prevention measures in the workplaces

  • At least 1,500 workplaces have assessed COVID-19 infection risks and implemented actions plans to enhance the COVID-19 prevention measures based on advice of OSH doctors.
  • Increased knowledge on COVID-19 prevention measures and enhanced capacity to address OSH issues
  • At least 500 enterprises learnt good practices of preventing the spread of COVID-19 at workplaces.
  • At least 10,000 workers improved their understanding of OSH, especially COVID-19 prevention measures.
  • At least 200 labour inspectors improved their awareness of COVID-19 prevention guidelines.
  • The capacity of 200 workplace leaders is built to promote OSH and raise awareness of workers.

Key Partners

  • Ministry of Manpower
  • Indonesia Occupational Doctors Association (IDKI)
  • Employers' Association of Indonesia (Apindo)
  • Trade union confederations
  • Embassy of Japan in Jakarta

Sustainability of Project Impact

The project intends to strengthen the ownership of project partners and sustainability of the impact by generating tools that can be used in future public health crisis. Enterprises can use the risk assessment and awareness-raising tools that the project will generate beyond the life of the project. The project also sustains its impact by building the capacity relevant government officials, social partners, OSH professionals, enterprises, and workers to address various OSH challenges beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.