Indonesia prioritizes skilled labor for industrialization and economic sovereignty

Indonesian officials have emphasized that developing a highly competent workforce is essential for the nation's industrialization and economic sovereignty. Minister of Manpower Yassierli stated that agendas such as downstreaming, strengthening national industry, and ensuring food and energy security require workers capable of creating domestic value.

To achieve this, the Ministry of Manpower is focusing on four key areas: building competent workers through vocational training, apprenticeships, and certification; creating an adaptive labor market through reskilling and upskilling; fostering an inclusive work environment; and maintaining harmonious industrial relations. These efforts aim to prepare the workforce for digitalization, artificial intelligence, automation, and the energy transition.

Supporting this view, Satya Hangga Yudha Widya Putra, an expert for the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, noted that managing strategic natural resources must be accompanied by strengthening national human resource capacity. He argued that true sovereignty involves not just possessing natural resources, but having the technological and industrial capability to process them domestically to increase value.