A Talk about Productivity and Globalism.

One of the weaknesses that Indonesian workforce has is its low productivity. Professor Richard Moore from California State University said that in relation to the cheap labor, the workforce tends to get wasted. In other countries such as America, they have minimum wages for worker.That way company will be selective for the kind of job they offer. For example, in Indonesia there are jobs such as coffee boys and chaffeur, but in other countries the cost to hire someone to do such job is too high that employees simply has to make their own coffee and drive their own car. He mentioned that the servant in Indonesia can make Rp.700.000/ month while a servant in California can make Rp.11.000.000/ month. Why? It’s all about productivity. Usually, what you earn reflect your productivity. One servant in California can serve more people compare to here and make more value at their workplace. Even if Indonesia have a minimum wages now, it will not work because the company will not earn enough to pay their employees. At the moment, companies in Indonesia are trying to find the cheapest labor and they will soon have to find another way to compete because the cost of labor are due to change and the only way go is increasing their productivity.

To be productive, there important factors to consider such as capital, infrastructure, management, and the quality of people. In term of the quality of the people, Professor Watson from Kent mentioned that there is a need for professionalism at al level in Indonesian workforce. He feels that in all levels of work people are not up to global standard therefore training for workers are needed. People have insufficient quality assurance, bad time management and there are low supervision in general. This is because many workers are recruited based on nepotism, have no motivation to do better in their job and low practical field. That way, again, proper training is definetely something that workers in all level need, because even people at top position of the company still have the lack of professionalism.


We also aware that globalization will affect our economy, so in term of it what will happen? Professor Moore said that theoritically and in term of productivity globalization is good, because company that produce the cheapest product will sell. For example, if China produce the cheapest motorcycle and America produce the cheapest software they simply have to buy from one another and therefore complete each other. But, he also added that it does not always work that way. Some might say that globalization perpetuates economic inequality based on system of complimentarity or make the poor country even poorer. But whether we agree or not, it already affects our economy and lock us into the global system.

So what can we do to survive in it? Professor Moore mentioned that to be sucessful we need to keep learning and be innovative. The competition between workers will be very strict and the requirement of qualified and “productive” workers keep changing everyday. For instance, the ability of speaking English is a must for worker today, the next day it could be English and Mandarin. We need to be “updated” to every kind of technology and skill, because it is not a matter of surviving at work. It’s a matter of suceeding. We all want to be sucessful don’t we?

Yuanita Christayanie

(Based on Interview with Professor Richard Moore and Professor C.W. Watson)

A published in SBM News, November 29th, 2005.

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