500,000 Slots Open For Pre-Employment Card Batch 23, Says Coordinating Minister Airlangga

JAKARTADAILY.ID - Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto inaugurated the 23rd Pre-Employment Card program, the first batch this year, on Thursday, February 17, 2022.

The Pre-Employment Card program has been implemented for two years. According to an evaluation conducted by Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Southeast Asia and Rumah Presisi Indonesia, it has proven to have a positive impact on increasing competence as well as the income of the recipients.

According to Airlangga, the Pre-Employment Card package is a set of training used to prevent someone from losing their job during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Not only that, according to him, the Pre-Employment Card is able to promote financial and food security as well as become part of the financial inclusion program.

"The Pre-Employment Card package, which comprises of training and incentives, is an innovation from the government's program to swiftly respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and at the same time safeguard people from losing their jobs as well as those who require [the skills] to respond to today's challenges, including the dysfunction caused by digitalization," said the minister.

Airlangga believes that the Pre-Employment Card can serve as a template for government programs, which of course, can be promoted in the G20 event program, especially to support its "recovering together" and "recovering stronger" themes. The program might be replicated in other developing countries.

Since April 11, 2020, the number of pre-employment recipients from 22 registration batches has reached 11.4 million.

About 87 percent of the recipients had never attended any previous training before, which means that the pre-employment training was their first online training experience.

Airlangga Hartarto hopes that the 11 million individuals who have received the Pre-Employment Card will continue to learn and practice their knowledge in order to become reliable people.

"I hope that the 11 million alumni who participated [in the program] from all over Indonesia will continue to learn in order to increase their knowledge, [as well as] practice the knowledge they learned so they can become good workers or even become reliable entrepreneurs," said Airlangga.

This year's Pre-Employment Card is the same as before. For the first week of the 23rd batch, the quota is 500 thousand people.

Then the Pre-Employment Cards allocated to 50,000 migrant workers, which is expected to increase the competence of prospective Indonesian migrant workers.

According to Airlangga, the training will provide assurances to prospective Indonesian migrant workers that they already have the competencies needed to work in their destination countries.

Airlangga said that should one wish to register for a Pre-Employment Card, they can visit www.prakerja.go.id. Those qualified might immediately choose the mandated training.