Jakarta. The Job Creation Law Task Force recently teamed up with the Indonesian Business Women Association (Iwapi) to economically empower women.

Both parties jointly held a workshop focusing on nurturing inclusive and fair relations between businesswomen and their workers. Tina Talisa, one of the task force’s working group heads, said that this was not the first time that they worked together with Iwapi. The workshop was not only to educate participants on the making of a business registration number but also other fundamental issues related to manpower.

“Iwapi as part of the private sector holds a role to create jobs for the people. That is why we need to tell them the regulations related to manpower,” Tisa was quoted as saying in a press statement.

Fellow working group head I Ktut Hadi Priatna said that the task force was open to accepting any suggestions from Iwapi, be it on issues related to labor or business licensing.

"In the future, there are many things that need to be synergized between the government and Iwapi to encourage Indonesia to become more advanced and friendly to entrepreneurs," Ktut said.

Iwapi’s Nita Yudi said that the group’s businesswomen had faced many obstacles related to legal issues between workers and the businesspeople. She said: “Hopefully, the Job Creation Law could solve these issues.”

According to Manpower Ministry’s director Agatha Widianawati, women in today’s era of industrialization have been able to express themselves and adapt to global challenges. These challenges are related to the global economic growth and geopolitics, gig and green economy, as well as Indonesia’s demographics and employment conditions.

"Apart from these challenges, we are also experiencing the dynamics in industrial relations, in which companies are carrying out business transformations which will result in a reduction in workers' welfare," Agatha said. 

She also called for all businesswomen to make the right decisions on employment while taking into account the impact on their workers.

In terms of contribution to economic growth, women have a fairly high contribution, according to the Cooperatives Ministry. Yulius, the ministry’s deputy, revealed that 64.5 percent of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are owned by women. About 42.35 percent of informal workers are women. As many as 50 percent of culinary MSMEs are owned by women.

"If we look at the GDP [gross domestic product], almost 50 percent is in the consumption sector. Penetration in the culinary sector is good for increasing MSMEs," Yulius said while adding that the ministry would continue to encourage women to contribute to the economy via a series of initiatives.