Jakarta, ThedailyID — Indonesia’s Ministry of Manpower will tighten the selection process for its National Internship Programme to ensure participants receive work experience that matches their academic backgrounds.
Manpower Minister Yassierli said the government would not allow companies to assign interns to jobs unrelated to their fields of study.
Instead, companies must submit internship vacancies for government verification before they can recruit participants.
“We want an accountable and transparent system. Companies must post their internship vacancies first, and we will verify them,” Yassierli said after opening an online job fair on Tuesday, July 28.
He added that the ministry wants to prevent companies from placing engineering graduates in unrelated positions simply because internships offer low-cost labour.
The government plans to run the programme in three batches, with 50,000 participants in each round. The initiative aims to accommodate 150,000 interns this year.
Interest has exceeded expectations.
According to Yassierli, the first batch attracted about 300,000 applicants for only 50,000 places.
The minister said the programme addresses one of Indonesia’s biggest labour market challenges: the gap between graduates’ skills and industry needs.
He expects participants to gain practical skills during the six-month internship before entering the workforce.
The ministry also hopes to reduce vertical mismatch, where graduates work in positions that require lower qualifications.
In addition, it aims to reduce horizontal mismatch, where employees work outside the fields they studied at university.
Yassierli said improving those areas would strengthen Indonesia’s workforce and better align graduates’ skills with employer demand.
