Indonesian workers have to improve their skills to be able to compete with workers from other countries in the current globalization era, a Nobel laureate has warned.

International companies are only interested in accommodating skilled workers while unskilled ones will have little place, 2007 Nobel laureate for economics Eric Stark Maskin said on Sunday at Surabaya University (Ubaya) in East Java.

Maskin kicked off the ASEAN series “Bridges — Dialogues Towards a Culture of Peace” by the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation (IPF) presenting lectures by Nobel laureates in several Indonesian cities between January and March.

He said both Indonesian and Chinese workers had the opportunities to work for international companies in the globalization era.

International companies in global markets will not employ unskilled workers. They are interested only in people who can offer additional skills, he said in his lecture taking the theme “Why Global markets have failed to reduce inequality”.

The professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said skilled workers would earn higher incomes and leave the unskilled behind.

Inequality in global markets could be alleviated by providing jobs and education for unskilled people, Maskin proposed.

He added that there should be a collective awareness among government, employers, community leaders and other stakeholders to achieve world peace through positive economic activities, which are unselfish.

Maskin would not comment on what the Indonesian government had done so far in educating the youth who will soon enter the labor market. But the government’s efforts by providing cash subsidies are achievable.

“Poor families can use cash subsidies to send their children to school to get a better education,” he said, and then these children would meet the need for skilled workers.

“Education is expensive for poor people, I want someone to help them. I want someone to open the door. So they are getting education, getting some skill training,” said Maskin.

Another trend which Maskin said should be anticipated was the competition between humans and technology.

“We do not know exactly what is in the future but certainly machines are in the process of eliminating unskilled labor, he said.

“Then it becomes more important to make sure that everybody has some skills so they don’t become captive to machines.”

Meanwhile, Ubaya acting rector Nemuel Daniel Pah said that like the Nobel laureates the university was also committed to humanity and world peace.

The sixth “Bridges — Dialogues Towards a Culture of Peace” is facilitated by the IPF and held in Surabaya, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Denpasar in Bali and Bandung, West Java.

IPF founding chairman Uwe Morawetz said the foundation brought the Nobel laureates to visit the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia to promote peace through education.

“We are doing this because we believe education is the basis of peace. This is also why the name of the series involves bridges,” said Morawetz.

“We help not just for today. Not a one-time visit to Indonesia but a long-term relationship.”

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