Digital Platform for Blue Collar Workers

Blue collar worker (blue collar workers) synonymous with "manual work". This type of work is almost there and is needed in every business environment – ​​some are temporary, outsourced, to permanent workers. The tendency of this segment is filled with people low skill workers, people who have minimal competence – generally due to poor access to education. According to BPS data, as of 2019 low skill workers dominate the informal sector with a figure of 57,27%.

Still from BPS survey, as of August 2019 the average informal worker pocketed an income of 1,4 million per month. In some cities this amount is equivalent to the UMR, but in big cities like Jakarta or Surabaya, the figure is still far below the UMR. In fact, the problem of economic inequality has become one of the roots in the country.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, they are also one of the most affected groups, especially in the labor-intensive sector or those that require human movement in carrying out their duties.

Digital startups see it as an opportunity

One of the DNA of digital startups is to produce solutions to specific problems in society. A number of founder initiative to streamline the blue collar workforce gap. The innovations presented are quite diverse, ranging from bridging access between businesses (which need workers) and workers, to helping provide instant education that can support their efforts to find.

Kurniawan Santoso is one of them. It is Founder & CEO of Job2Go, a portal/app job marketplace which focuses on blue collar jobs. He said, market share blue necklace which refers to the group of workers with skill the limited and informal are the largest segment of the entire workforce population in Indonesia, almost all business sectors. This segment of workers will continue to be the backbone of economic revival, including to revive the post-pandemic economy.

Services Job2GO itself is represented on the platform marketplace website and application based mobile devices. Employers and prospective workers can meet on the platform. The latest data shows that they have accommodated 15 thousand users, with 500 companies offering various vacancies. The types of jobs offered range from sales personnel, merchandising, SPG, marketing staff, administrative staff, and others.

Steven Chu, Detin Melati, and Komala Surya also see the same opportunity. With a platform called Heikaku, they present a job portal that connects SMEs with workers. As of the first quarter of 2020, they have helped 2 thousand SMEs with more than 8 thousand job vacancy advertisements. In their statement, the Heikaku team said, "The lockers that are opened the most are like admin,sales, drafting, telemarketing, marketing, SPG and others. Around 87% of applicants at Heikaku are high school/vocational school graduates."

Apart from models marketplace like the two players above, there are other startups trying different approaches. For example, what the Sampingan and Big Agent applications do. They try to empower daily workers with various job opportunities outsourced or work on a limited contract. For example, work to market something or conduct a survey somewhere. Workers are paid based on performance results or what is called pay per performance.

Challenges faced

Trying to reach this market share with a technological approach is not without reason, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Nowadays, smartphone penetration has reached the lower classes. Points like simplification user experience and UI be crucial in the application development process – in addition Yago's defensive effort platform managers must do more to find the maximum potential of workers.

Kurniawan said, "We are trying to educate users to register on the platform by filling in good data. This information is very important to facilitate the job search and self-development process. And of course this will make it easier for the industry to find out their potential and recruit effectively. This effort is not easy "In addition to low awareness, there are also structural obstacles, for example inadequate equipment or poor internet access."

Other players choose to present effective innovations to help with administrative matters. For example, what the platform does There is work who presents chatbot on the Facebook Messenger platform to help users create a comprehensive CV. CV is an important aspect for companies to identify the potential of prospective workers and becomes a form for prospective workers to promote themselves through their experiences.

It is also an industrial problem

Menurut a research, turnover blue-collar workers are quite high. The average in the company reached 20%. Turnover refers to the entry and exit of employees who fill certain positions. This condition is actually burdensome for the company, because from the same survey it was stated that the costs that must be incurred to overcome turnover it's not cheap, it can go up to $4,569.

The presence of digital platforms is also trying to bring disruption to the blue collar employment cycle. There are platforms like marketplace allows job employers to connect directly with prospective workers, because so far there are still many employment agencies or bureaus in this segment.

Using a bureau means that the company has to pay more money, or conversely sacrifices the potential for more income from its workers.

"The average UMR for the Jakarta area is 3 million Rupiah, indicating that the majority of workers are in the sector blue necklace. However, there is no medium that connects companies or entrepreneurs with skilled workers directly. "We hope that the presence of AdaKerja will be able to provide easy access for SMEs and companies in recruiting workers," said AdaKerja Founder Ashwin Tiwari.

Kurniawan added that players are also trying to create more value on the job search platform. For example, what Job2Go does is provide access to training materials. "The superior feature that will be coming soon is that we want to provide access to financial services, such as opening accounts, salary management, financial management, access to investments or bill payments, and purchasing other digital products. [...] Financial health is one of the things that "We really need to present it to this segment of workers."