VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The second G20 Employment Working Group (EWG) meeting, which opened in Yogyakarta on Tuesday, highlighted global manpower issues, including unemployment and the decent work gap.

The meeting focused on the development of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and entrepreneurship as priority issues.

"(The meeting) focused on developing entrepreneurship, building business agents' resilience, and improving productivity to adapt to a change in the labor market so that it will help mitigate the issue of unemployment and the increasingly wider gap of decent work," secretary general of the Indonesian Manpower Ministry, Anwar Sanusi, informed in a written statement received in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2nd EWG meeting, Sanusi said the COVID-19 pandemic has made manpower issues more complex.

He then appealed to all countries to focus not only on recovering the labor market but also on accelerating labor force absorption in the wake of the pandemic.

He said the recovery policy must also support the continuation of businesses, allowing for more innovation, productivity growth, and sustainability. This must also cover MSMEs, which function as important economic drivers in developed and developing countries.

"Indonesia's (G20) Presidency, in the manpower sector, encourages the role of G20 to continue to improve cooperation initiatives, policies, and programs that ensure the creation of sustainable job opportunities, the sustainable effort of supporting business agents and entrepreneurs, and (the development of) an inclusive labor market in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic," he added.

Hopefully, the efforts will encourage recovery from the current economic crisis as soon as possible through the creation of entrepreneurs and the strengthening of MSMEs for expanding job opportunities.

To that end, the creation of a conducive business environment and the informal transformation of MSMEs must be encouraged and the development of entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurship culture must be supported in order to develop new entrepreneurs.

It will also be necessary to strengthen business mentorship for new entrepreneurs and MSMEs, and build business agents' and MSMEs' resilience by improving their capacity, providing technical assistance, and protecting their rights and interests as well as those of employees.

"Indonesia always prioritizes productive and harmonious dialogs and encourages the achievement of concrete outcomes and real action through collaboration among G20 stakeholders, as part of efforts to create a joint commitment to struggle for the priority goal of the (G20) Presidency," he said. (Antaranews)