Indonesian office urges white-collar workers to register online

Taipei, Nov. 10 (CNA) The Indonesian Economic and Trade Office (IETO) to Taipei has called on professional Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan to officially register in an online system to enjoy the same benefits currently extended to blue-collar Indonesian workers.

IETO on Sunday held an event to publicize a "pilot program" that was launched on Oct. 17 to get white-collar workers to register in the system set up by the Agency for the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BP2MI).

In doing so, Indonesians who have earned professional foreign worker status can access the same benefits as Indonesian workers engaged in manual labor, Indonesia Deputy Representative Zulmartinof told CNA on the sidelines of the event.

These include Indonesian Migrant Workers' Social Security coverage and US$500 exemptions in customs duties when they send or carry goods back to Indonesia up to three times a year, Zulmartinof said.

Under the Law of the Republic of Indonesia on the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers passed in 2017, all migrant workers are required to be registered in the BP2MI system.

By having overseas workers register, the Indonesian government can better provide them with assistance in the event of work-related accidents, health issues, or deaths, the Indonesian office has said.

Up to now, however, the Indonesian government has mostly focused on registering manual workers who "required more attention," according to Zulmartinof.

Indonesia is the country with the third highest number of white-collar workers in Taiwan, after Malaysia and Japan, and if the pilot program proves successful, the Indonesian Ministry of Labor will implement similar programs in other countries, he said.

As of 5 p.m., only 19 Indonesian professional workers were registered out of 5,947 of such workers in Taiwan, according to IETO.

Most of these white-collar workers earned the status of "professional foreign worker" after they graduated from a Taiwanese university or graduate institution, IETO said in a statement.

They work in Taiwan's engineering, higher education, journalism, translation, and hospitality sectors, among others, IETO said.