65 percent of RI workers outsourced, contract-based

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 12/23/2010

Sixty-five percent of workers in Indonesia apparently work for outsourcing companies or are contract workers, indicating a more than double increase from the 2005 figure.

The president of the Confederation of Indonesian Prosperity Trade Unions, Rekson Silaban, said Thursday that five years ago permanent workers accounted for 70 percent of the total workforce in Indonesia, leaving only 30 percent working on an outsourced or contract basis.

“The data was cited by the World Bank and the ILO two months ago. That means only 35 percent of our workers are now permanent workers,” he told a press conference in Jakarta as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

“That means that only 9.5 million people in Indonesia have permanent jobs through to retirement,” he said, adding that there were currently a total of 33 million formal workers in Indonesia.

Rekson expressed concern over the issue, reiterating that contract-based and outsourced workers were in a disadvantaged position and that they rarely won a case when facing their employers at the Industrial Relations Court.