JAKARTA - Labor Minister Yassierli admitted Thursday the government's job training centers can only handle 70,000 people a year, roughly one percent of Indonesia's unemployed.

The minister laid it out during a coordination meeting in Jakarta between his ministry's vocational training division and the job placement division. He said the small reach is why they're overhauling the whole system.

"What we need to chase isn't just how many people get trained, but how many actually get jobs after training or start their own businesses," Yassierli said at the meeting on January 8.

He said the Vocational and Productivity Training Centers (BPVP/BLK) need to stop measuring success by certificates handed out or pages in reports. The real measure is whether graduates land jobs through placement programs or start businesses through initiatives like the Independent Workers program.

Yassierli wants every training program backed by solid data tracking who goes through the system and what happens after. That means following up on whether people found work or launched their own thing.

With around 7.46 million people out of work as of August 2025, the scale of unemployment far outstrips the roughly 70,000 training slots available each year, helping explain why the ministry says it needs to overhaul the country’s training centres.

The makeover includes turning training centers into vocational hubs, talent and innovation centers, specialized facilities for people with disabilities, and reference centers for small and medium business productivity.

"The main goal is rebuilding Kemnaker's credibility through performance that people can actually feel," Yassierli said.

As economic anxiety deepens nationwide, Indonesians have been resorting to overseas jobs. Official placement data show roughly 286,000 departures by mid-December 2025, while remittances topped about USD 16.0 billion in 2024.