It is estimated that around the beginning of 2020, early adults aged 20 to 40 years will dominate the job market. The high number of Christmas in the Baby Boom era, made the population explosion in this century unstoppable. This can be an opportunity as well as our threat as the young generation who participated in the time that was said to be a demographic bonus. If you can take advantage of this abundant personnel, Indonesia will become a superpower country like China or become a collapse of too many unemployed staff. The millennial generation who was born around the 90s until now are people who should be in control of the country's economic wheels in the era of demographic bonuses. We are the one who bears the gloom or gloomy of the economy that occurred in that era. Unfortunately, 40 percent of these total generations are still educated in elementary school and less than 20 ″/o with undergraduate education. So that it can be predicted, the majority of Indonesian labor force is Unskilled Labor alias uneducated labor.
If the majority of the workforce is uneducated, this will of course be a problem in driving the economy.
Especially in the digital era when technology is starting to replace uneducated labor. Of course, it is not uneducated workers who can drive the start-ups that are starting to emerge in Indonesia. So, how do we solve this problem? Indonesia needs to follow the example of China and Japan in utilizing its population to drive the wheels of the economy.
Hiroshima, which was destroyed in 1945, should have caused Japan's economy to plummet, considering that the city was the center of Japanese research. However, this was broken by Japan in the 60s with the displacement of Ford by Toyota in the American market. This is because the baby boom phase was successfully utilized by Japan after the Second World War. Infrastructure and education are fully facilitated by the Japanese government and the culture of kaizen, aka slow improvement, is promoted among the people. The population's high sense of nationalism also helps accelerate development.
China is no different, its population of more than 1 billion people has not caused it to collapse due to unemployment figures.
Business opportunities have been opened on a large scale by the government. Domestic businesses are strongly protected by minimizing imports and increasing barriers for foreign entrepreneurs to enter the market. This is also supported by the spirit of Chinese traders who have been hereditary for generations. Now, China is the country with the highest GDP in the world because of its use of human resources. So far, we have depended a lot on the oil and gas sector in the economy. Evidently, the oil and gas sector is the sector with the second highest income in the country's GDP.
In fact, oil and gas is not a sector that can be relied on in the long term. This is because oil and gas is not something that can be produced quickly and easily. Therefore, we need to lead our economy to sustainable industries and utilize the large number of unskilled labor we have. If not, there will be mass unemployment which will have a negative impact on the social sector.
Unerealed unemployment will cause social problems in society, ranging from crime, decreased interest in education, and increasing prostitution. For example, South Africa which has a 26% unemployment rate in 2018. Their population is willing to do "selling themselves" just for a bite of rice. Of course, if this becomes compulsion, things that deviate besides it will be done to meet the needs. Shortcut streets such as gambling, selling drugs to coloring will become rife. The business and industrial sector is one of the roles that can be taken by educated staff to create jobs for the era of demographic bonuses. Limited Skilled Labor in Indonesia cannot just wait and compete to seize seats provided by other parties. If we only rely on employment provided by the government and the private sector, of course the rate of population growth will be far defeated the availability of employment. And leads to a crisis that affects all levels of society. Starting a business from an early age is one step we can take as an educated personnel to prevent this problem from coming in the future. Certainly, by opening jobs we also participate in helping the government in the success of the success of the era of demographic bonuses. This has been proven by one of the recent digital start-ups in Indonesia.
According to the 2017 BPS survey, unemployment in Indonesia fell by 508,000 people. Around 200,000 of them are partners of one of the online motorcycle taxi start-ups in Indonesia, Go-Jek. Apart from solving the problem of base taxis which spend 70% of their working time waiting, he also solves the problem of uneducated unemployment in Indonesia, because driving does not require a high school diploma or bachelor's degree.
Of course, it's not only motorcycle taxi drivers who feel the benefits. The presence of Go-Jek which provides other features such as Go-Food also tightens the belt of the street vendor and food industry. Reporting from the Industri.bisnis.com article, there are around 35,000 Go-Food Partners who have collaborated and are spread across 15 cities throughout Indonesia. Of course, it's not only motorcycle taxi drivers who feel the benefits. The presence of Go-Jek, which provides other features such as Go-Food, also tightens the belt of the street vendor and food industry. Reporting from the Industri.bisnis.com article, there are around 35,000 Go-Food partners who have collaborated and are spread across 15 cities throughout Indonesia.
The government also provides a lot of support for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit but have limited capital. This is proven by the existence of Student Creativity Program Competitions and Student Entrepreneurship Programs which are widely distributed in the world of education. Of course, the government hopes that many students will later become business owners who will help move the world economy.
Reporting from Beritasatu.com, there is another program supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs} by cooperating with one of the youth organizations named IYP (Innovative Youth Project) which was held since 2011. "I appreciate the event of this event which is a forum for connectivity and networking for the leading young entrepreneur, especially Agus, Secretary of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs. Of course, there is no more reason for us not to start entrepreneurs from an early age. In addition, there is support from the government, Indonesia is also in need of our roles as an educated generation for the route to drive the wheels of the economy and overcome unemployment. So, especially the reason not to start a business, guys? (Danang Rizky Nugroho)
Source: B-Magz FEB Unair vol-1
