Primary School Graduate Dominates NTB Work Force

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), work distribution is dominated by primary school graduate, as many as 1 million workers, that is about 54.77 percent of the work force. Workers with Junior High School diploma are as many as 349,900 people, or around 16.54 percent. While higher education workers are only 176,400 people.

However, comparing to the previous year, the number of primary school graduate workers has decreased from 57.62 percent to 54.77 percent. On the contrary, the number of higher education graduate workers increased from 7.85 percent to 8.34 percent.

Soegarenda, the NTB Head of Statistic Agency, said that the unemployment rate (TPT) in Junior High School graduate reaches its peak at 3.27 percent. TPT from the university level reaches the highest of all, which is 8.73 percent. Overall, unemployment rate from all levels of education experienced an increase, except for the Junior High and Vocational School level.

The data was based on BPS release in February, with the total of 178,000 in economic activity work force and 942,000 in non economic activity. Within a year from 2012, the number experienced a great increase, also with a high number of job seekers.

Mokhlis, NTB Head of Labor and Transmigration, explained that this phenomenon is because the Indonesian Labor Force (TKI) went down in number. From 50,000 workers to 45,000, despite Saudi Arabia’s moratorium. The amount of TKI Remittance in 2012 was also reported to drop in 2012, from Rp 1.4 trillion to Rp 1.1 trillion. 

SUPRIYANTHO KHAFID