KUTA

Local work skills must quickly improve so that employers did not need foreign labour in the tourism sector, a student seminar was told last weekend.

Denpasar Handayani Education Foundation chairman I.B. Gede Wirawibawa said globalisation had increasingly expanded opportunities for foreign workers in Bali, because companies needed skilled labour. Replacing foreigners with local skilled labour was a challenge Bali needed to meet.

He said expatriate labour was necessary but its role was to give way to local employees when people with the relevant skills became available. “Law No. 10/2009 suggests that every worker is required to have competency standards,” he said. “Hopefully it can be implemented. This is one of our efforts to improve our human resources.”

The seminar, held at the Discovery Kartika Plaza Hotel in Kuta, was organised by labour unions and the Bali institute of industrial relations.