*Jakarta Globe, 3 March 2010
The headline “Singapore Moves to Curtail Immigration” in last week’s Wall Street Journal caught my eye. It seems like clamping down on immigration is the trend among developed countries such as Singapore, the United States and Britain. When the going is good, everyone is content for immigrant workers to clean the toilets and do the backbreaking labor. But during any financial crisis, these foreign workers are usually the ones who bear the brunt.
Does it benefit a country to reduce immigration regardless of whether it is developed or developing?
In our case, it does not. Indonesia is the flip side of Singapore. Being the fourth most populous country in the world, with more than 235 million people, we are the supplier of low-skilled workers to Malaysia, East Asia and the Middle East. When I asked several locals what their opinion was on foreign workers in Indonesia, they replied, “You mean the bules ?”
So our issue is not an influx of low-skilled workers taking away local jobs. Instead, we have highly skilled foreign workers taking upper-management positions.
Like many developing countries, we tend to welcome foreigners with open arms because most bring with them skills that can help the nation move forward. At least, that is our hope. Few Indonesians will say foreign workers have stolen our jobs.
However, being a highly skilled foreign worker doesn’t exempt you from falling victim to a financial crisis. Many foreign workers were sent home during the 1997-98 financial crisis mainly due to their high wages, which can reach triple those of local salaries. But even if the government cut back on foreign workers to open up more opportunities for locals, as it did during the 1997-98 financial crisis, would the locals prove capable enough in the long run?
BBC broadcaster Evan Davis’s documentary, “The Day the Immigrants Left,” asks a similar question: What would society be like if Britain didn’t have immigrants? As an experiment, he placed 12 unemployed resident of a small town in jobs normally occupied by low-skilled foreign workers.
“What’s undoubtedly the case is that a lot of these jobs are backbreaking jobs and there is not a lot of demand by British workers to do these,” he said.
We have the opposite problem. Though we didn’t collapse when many foreigners left in 1998, both the locals and expats I spoke with agreed that Indonesia needs highly skilled immigrants because the country isn’t ready to stand alone just yet. We have the manpower, but most still lack the education and training to take the country to the next level.
One expat told me that critical thinking is valuable for a country trying to grow. But what about overseas-trained Indonesians who can think critically? Can we hinge our bets on them? To that, a local investment banker replied that certain sectors like banking still need and benefit from the presence of foreigners even if others like marketing do not.
I agree that foreigners add value and that every country, whether developing or not, is enriched by and benefits from both professional and low-skilled immigrants. But I’m also calling for Indonesians to cultivate self-reliance. We, as a nation, are much too enamored with and dependent on our foreign workers. Maybe we could start looking inward and learn to appreciate homegrown talent. Instead of bemoaning our low salaries in comparison to high foreign worker earnings, perhaps we could begin to nurture and educate the next generation better.
The China Daily recently reported that former migrant workers are staying home because they’re finding better job opportunities near their towns and villages, an upside of economic regeneration due to China’s stimulus package.
I hope that there will come a time when Indonesia’s poor no longer have to work in far-flung countries away from their families. In my utopia, Indonesia has a lower unemployment rate than Singapore and our large population is empowered with the skills and training it needs to bring the country’s innate sense of creativity and innovation to the forefront of Asia’s rising giants.
However, we will always be looking for adventure or escape from inhospitable origins or to improve ourselves. Migration is part of being human. It will never stop. And it should not because foreigners add color and a different perspective. Indonesia can still embrace immigrants while striving to be a self-reliant nation.
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