A Day in the Life of a Laborer
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
IN commemorating Labor Day, we present a profile of a woman worker, one of thousands employed in labor-intensive clothing and shoe factories. The Indonesian workforce is closing in on 100 million, and is expected to increase by 13.8 million annually. Women laborers comprise about 40 percent of the national workforce. Unemployment is a serious social issue and the planned growth level of 6 percent is not high enough to absorb all the new people entering the labor force. Rokhati’s lot may seem hard, but the alternative is more grim.
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For Rokhati, 22, an employee at a clothing factory somewhere in an industrial estate in North Jakarta, a working day starts at dawn. In her tiny, rented unfurnished room which she shares with two other women, she quickly folds her wicker mat and bathes in the dark in the common facilities provided for the residents of five other rooms. Breakfast is a hurried meal of cold rice and whatever is left over from the previous night’s dinner.
Walking
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