VIVAnews - Central Statistics Agency (BPS) estimated that the unemployment rate will increase by 300,000 people due to the fact that the economic growth is targeted to reach only 5.5 percent, which will only result in 2.2 million employment.
Meanwhile, the annual number of employment usually reaches 2.5 million. "This means that there will be additional unemployment of 300,000," said BPS Head Rusman Heriawan on Monday, Jan 19.
Therefore, he said, the government will boost utilization of stimulation fund to absorb more employment. The measure is taken because the 2009 crisis is considered out of the ordinary. "We can no longer apply the calculation which measures that every one percent of economic growth will result in 400,000 employment," he said.
To minimize unemployment rate, the government is concentrating on areas that may accommodate more employment. "We are hoping that stimulation fund of Rp 27.5 trillion [will be disbursed]. Most of the sums will be prioritized for stimulation programs, which are expected to absorb more employment, such as infrastructure projects," he said.
BPS feels that such prioritized programs may intensify employment to between 700 thousand and one million for every one percent of economic growth. Therefore, unemployment figure which reached 9.39 million in August 2008 can be dealt with.
In addition, Heriawan also said that the 2008 economic growth was still above six percent. Although the percentage is not yet officially announced, the economic growth in the previous three quarters reached 6.3 percent. "If only the economic growth in fourth quarter of 2008 were 5.7 percent, we are still optimistic that the growth would be above six percent," said Heriawan. The accredited announcement of the 2008 economic growth will be released by 15 February 2009.
Translated by: Bonardo Maulana Wahono
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