South Sulawesi to send 451,612 migrant workers abroad

Makassar, South Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - South Sulawesi province will try its best to meet its quota to send 451,612 Indonesian workers (TKI) to the Asia-Pacific region, Australia, the Middle East and Europe in 2009, South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo said here on Sunday. 

He said that the Indonesian workers would be employed in such sectors as plantation, industry, welding, baby sitting, telecommunications, domestic helping and other sectors. 

The governor said that in the Asia Pacific region, the destination countries included Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. 

A number of 223,738 TKIs would be dispatched to these Asian countries while 1,750 others would be sent to Australia and New Zealand, Limpo said. 

The governor said Qatar, Untied Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan also needed 222,624 workers from South Sulawesi, while Canada and the United States needed 3,500 TKIs. 

"South Sulawesi will meet the quota of sending workers to those countries in an effort to reduce the still high unemployment rate in the province," the governor said. 

He said that South Sulawesi`s contribution to the national unemployment rate was only about 10.49 percent, namely 343,760 persons of the country`s 11.5 million unemployed people. 

Unemployment rate in South Sulawesi has dropped this year from 374,714 people in 2007, the governor said.