Background

Industry 4.0 poses the threat of job losses in labour-intensive industries and opportunities for growth in emerging industries. Many new skills are needed for future of work, such as those in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. The ICT sector – including such diverse areas as financial technology (fintech), animation, e-commerce, and block chain– will continue to grow in line with the development of industry 4.0. This is apparent from the significant increase number of internet users in Indonesia over the last decade, with growth from 20 million in 2007 to 171.2 million in 2018 (APJII 2018).

Indonesia has the largest digital economy value among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, at an estimated value of US$40 billion, and it is expected to grow to US$133 billion in 2025 (Liputan6.com 2020). Indonesia also has a large potential digital market with an active initial ecosystem, with 2,193 start-ups in 2019 (Databoks 2019), five of which have become “unicorns” (Clinten 2019).

With the rapid development of Information and technology, jobseekers need an understanding of the types of IT related jobs available, how to prepare themselves to fit with skills required by the job for job seekers and workers who are at risk of losing their jobs to enter the growing ICT sector. The COVID-19 crisis is having a devastating impact on the education and training of young peoples. According to the ILO report, Youth and COVID-19: impacts on jobs, education, rights and mental well-being, the outset of the pandemic impact adversely to more than seventy percent of youth who study or combining study and work by the closing of schools, universities and number training centres.

The report also suggests that sixty-five percent of young people reported had been learning less due to the transition of learning delivery modalities from classroom to online and distance learning during lockdown. In spite of their efforts to continue their learning and training, half of them believed that their studies and training would be delayed and nine percent of them thought that they might fail. In fact, before the COVID, youth unemployment in Indonesia stood at 17.3 % higher than global average of 13%. The youth unemployment is predicted to worsen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Failing to address the issue will make the country loss a momentum to utilize demographic dividend where productive age population including youth are higher than dependent population (non-productive age), worse turning demographic bonus to the demographic disaster.

Against this backdrop, the ILO Jakarta Office through its Japan-funded Skills project and UNIQLO project, funded by Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., plan to organize a series of activities to disseminate findings of the rapid assessment targeting particularly youth and women, who are among the hardest hit by the pandemic, in addition to constituents and public in general. To addre s the changing of the world of work due to IT development that impacts to the current and future skills needs in the ICT sector, in May 2020 the ILO Jakarta office organized a rapid assessment to identify skills demands and job opportunities in the ICT sector. The rapid assessment examines skills demands and job opportunities before COVID-19 pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The assessment identified changes in skills demands and opportunities in the ICT sector between the two periods.

Full report and infographics of the rapid assessment have been published and can be accessed at www.ilo.org/jakarta.

Objective

The objective of these series of activities is to increase knowledge and awareness on skills demand and opportunities in the ICT sector in Indonesia.