Millions of Indonesians File for Jobless Claims 

(Bloomberg) --

More than 8.6 million Indonesians signed up for a government program offering cash allowance and online training as the coronavirus pandemic continued to render scores without jobs.

The pre-employment card program will offer selected applicants a monthly allowance of 600,000 rupiah ($39) for four months and require them to sign up for one or more of the 2,000 online training courses, according to Denni Puspa Purbasari, an official supervising the program.

The government has selected more than 450,000 beneficiaries and transferred a part of the cash allowance into their accounts, Purbasari said. Officials will screen the remaining applications in the coming days and continued to accept new claims, he said.

The plan, mooted by President Joko Widodo last year to up-skill the nation’s workforce, is now being expanded to shield the poor from the fallout of the pandemic. The Covid-19 outbreak has forced several businesses to close due to stringent social distancing rules, leaving an estimated 2.8 million people jobless. The disease has infected almost 10,000 people in Indonesia and killed 784, the most in Asia after China and India.

Indonesia has one of the biggest work-forces in the world, which at 127 million is larger than the combined populations of Italy and the U.K. But 56% of people with jobs, about 70 million, are in informal employment with little or no safety net, leaving them severely exposed in an economic crisis.

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