TIMOR LESTE ABROAD WORKERS

PAULINO SALDANHA

(2015310600306)

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts to explain about reason why Timor Leste went to conduct labor

cooperation and sent youth Timorese workers to these countries. Timor Leste is one of the word

newest country, Timor Leste gains its independent on 20 May 2002. Timor Leste was born as

well as a new democratic country in Southeast Asia regional countries. Post independence,

Timor Leste began conducted international relations with abroad countries, mainly with neighbor

country such as Indonesia and common wealth of Australia in terms of bilateral cooperation,

regional and multilateral. Many of areas and sectors to become those cooperation, especially

labor cooperation was one of the Timor Leste’s foreign policy that has been set by the official

government through ministry of foreign affairs, in order to completely Timor Leste’s

independence and its sovereignty. It has been 15 years Timor Leste and EU especially North

Ireland and United Kingdom of England established labor cooperation between those countries,

South Korea and Australia conducted the same cooperation in earlier 2009, Timorese workers

focused on remittance, it was amount of money that sent from oversees to Timor Leste, in order

to fulfill daily necessary, construct the house, tuition fees payment and others necessaries

needed. The domestic constitutions of wealth countries considered offer good services and

protection for Timorese workers rights during working in these countries, there were no

distinguish rights between immigrant workers from local and overseas like Tunisia, Poland,

Kazakhstan and any others country. Timorese workers felt comfortable with the minimum wage

of payment, they working about 8 hours per day, and not include overtime yet. And it was worth

for Timorese workers to sustain daily necessaries in abroad and even in Timor Leste. So that,

Timor Leste’s foreign policies has given biggest advantageous for Timorese abroad workers to

develop their own life and also a great contribution for Timor Leste’s government to reduce

unemployment in the country.

Keywords: Timor Leste, Abroad workers, Bilateral Cooperation, ILO.

INTRODUCTION

A. BACKGRAOUND PROBLEMS

Timor Leste as a newly independent state in the era of millennium, as a new country it is

true that there are variety of challenges facing in the process of economic development.1

With the rapid rate of population growth about 3.3% each year, many of Timorese are still

living under poverty line (World Bank 2008, WFP 2010). Beside the above condition, Timor

Leste is rich with natural resources such as oil and gas. However, rely on natural resources

will not guarantee the sustainability of the economic development for the future. Related to a

sustainable development, the government has adopted some important policies in recent

years through the implementation of varies programs in the sectors of agriculture, fisheries

and tourism. The aims of these policies are to substitute the dependency on oil and gas sector.

These productive sectors which mentioned above are related to the world's labour market. In

the era of globalization, the demand of the workforce is increasing every year especially in

developed countries. This is one of the indicators for youth in less developed countries to

seek for overseas employment with the expectation to gained more skills and earned more

income. Although it's considered as "low wages" for people in developed countries, the

amount of money earned is very valuable for people in poor countries in order to improve the

economy of their household.2 Policy of the Government of Timor Leste through the Secretary

of State for Professional Training and Employment Policy (SEFOPE) is to reduce

unemployment, improve the quality and skills of human resources, creating conducive

working conditions for the workers through employment protection, and elaborate the labour

Code in accordance with the international provisions.

Associated with the demand of the labour market opportunities in developed countries,

the Government of Timor Leste use this opportunity to reduce the rate of unemployment

which has reached 3.6 % (SEPFOPE, 2010).3 To achieving this goal, the government has

been implementing some programs in the area of Vocational Training at existing training

1 Restoration Independence RDTL, Dili, Timor Leste 2002 2 A Study of Migrant Workers and the National Minimum Wage and Enforcement Issues that Arise 3 Experiences of young Timorese as migrant workers

in Korea (Wigglesworth and Fonseca)

centres and the implementation of Overseas Employment Program. This program will have

two positive impacts, the first is to increase the number of human resource which equip with

varies ability and ready to enter the labour market. The second is to fulfil the overseas

employment program, this program will gives an opportunity to the youth to work overseas

and support the family’s economy. Overseas Employment Program is one of the programs

under the responsibility of the National Employment Department (DNE). Implementation of

this program is based on the agreement with the countries that want to receive workers from

Timor Leste. During this period, the Government of Timor Leste has signed agreements with

the Government of South Korea and Australia. In the agreement those countries agreed on

some important issues, one of the agreement is the period of contract for the workers, The

South Korean Government provides an employment opportunity for the period of one to

three years, if the workers has established good performance and behaviour, the contract will

be extended for another two years, over five years if the workers still maintain positive

performance and behaviour, the South Korean Government will provide the Special Visa

namely E7, which give an opportunity for workers for the freely movement in South Korea

as well as the right to choose on a company which they want to work for.4

On the other hand, the Australian Government opened a program called 'seasonal

workers' contracts that provide opportunities to the workers from Timor Leste with the

provisions of the working period for three to six months in each year. The type of the

contract with a short period is one of Australia's policies to restrict foreigners to stay longer

in Australia. Overseas employment has been implemented by the government since 2008, in

the first phase, the Government of Timor Leste through SEPFOPE sent 50 workers to South

Korea. In 2011 the South Korean Government was asking for 2,500 workers, but Timor

Leste was only offering 400 workers.5 In 2012, South Korea raised the number of employees

reached to 2750 people, Timor Leste once again releasing only 500 workers. In 2013 the

South Korean government demanded workers jumped up to 3,500 people, but the number

which derived from the Government of Timor Leste only reach to 280 workers. Judging from

the small number that sent by the government of Timor Leste, South Korea also reduce the

4 South Korea’s Employment Permit System A Successful Government-to-Government

5 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=7469&lang=tp

number of employees to 1,750. In 2014 the number of bids not receive yet an answer from

the Government of Timor-Leste on how many number of workers will be delivered.

Total number of workers which sent by the government of Timor Leste was not in

accordance with the amount requested by South Korea in 2011 until 2013, which should

reach 7,570 workers, it can be concluded that the Government of Timor Leste has wasted

opportunity in improving human resources while reducing the income of remittance that

should be received by Timor Leste in large numbers. Based on the information from the

relevant department which responsible for the program said, SEPFOPE has its own criteria

that should be met by prospective workers to South Korea such as attending Korean language

course in a few months, in fact, many workers did not pass the final exam" (Alves . P 2014).

Migration is driven by the desire for a better life. The movement of people from their

place of origin is often influenced by diverse factors such as poverty, war or conflict and

injustice, but also the desire for better education or experiencing other cultures. Migration for

work has become an increasing phenomenon as a strategy for development, both sponsored

by governments to create remittance streams and as an option taken up by families for

improving their economic status. In Timor Leste it has been the minimal opportunities for

work domestically that has driven Timorese to export their labor to wealthier nations.

Thousands of Timorese workers have traveled to the EU, South Korea and Australia for work

and stayed many years to contribute to the daily needs of their families, the education of

extended family members, house construction and establishing family businesses, their

experiences and their contribution to their families through remittances streams.6

Remittance is amount of money which sent by overseas workers to their family at origin

country. This type of income is significant in generate a number of important positive

contribution to the economic development of many household whose mostly lives in rural

areas. Viewed from the macroeconomic perspective, remittances also influences the increase

of national income of individuals in each family who are getting the chance for the overseas

employment and tend to reduce poverty and inequality in recipient countries, as well as

increase aggregate investment and growth. At microeconomic stand point, the family who’s

regularly earn income from remittances, could improve their economy condition such as

increase the daily consumption for food and the basic needs. Furthermore this income also

6 Mapping of Migration data sources in timor-leste

used to increase saving, spend more on the education, improve children's health and

established a small or medium sized of businesses in the community.

The data from BNU (Banco Nacional Ultramarino) revealed that every year, workers in

South Korea sending money to family with the total amount of US$ 1,746,250.22 (BNU,

2013). Mean while, the data from Western Union Agency recorded remittances every three

months with the total amount of US$ 1,200,538.30. Total remittances recorded by SEPFOPE

in 2013 reached US$ 2,946,838.53.7

B. CRITICISIM

Inequalities between urban and rural Timor Leste have been a persistent feature of the

social landscape from colonial times. Many of these disparities reflect the asymmetric political

and economic dynamics that distinguish urban centre of power and financial influence,

especially the capital Dili, from the scattered, impoverished countryside where near subsistence

agriculture and inevitably limited state services prevail. Socially too under Portuguese rule, the

old status distinctions between assimilated and natives or worse savages spoke to a perceived

social gulf between advanced and educated urban modernity over and against the primitive and

unenlightened rural hinterland (Roque 2012). If today these regimes of place making between

cidade (town) and foho (country) have been reworked and revised under Indonesian occupation,

and the subsequent achievement of independence, echoes of these discriminatory spatial

categories are nevertheless, rein scribed through differential access to economic opportunity and

services of state (Silva 2011).

These persistent inequalities can also be measured in statistical terms. In 2012,

for example, the population of Timor Leste stood at 1,154,625, and 70.4 per cent of citizens were

classed as rural dwellers. They include a majority of the 1 As Silva (2011: 159) notes,

assimilated were those who adopted Christianity, spoke Portuguese and consequently were

considered free from the taint of custom and traditions.

The lack of support for agricultural development has meant that in the 2014 national

Budget just 2.2 per cent (US$34 million) has been allocated to the sector, undermining its

economic and agronomic prospects. Indeed, internal migration has been a sustained feature of

7 ILO (2016), ‘Structura l transformation and jobs in Timor-Leste’, International Labour Organisation, Dili

the history of Dili, especially from the early 20th century.8 Guterres 2003 notes that on the eve of

the Second World War and the subsequent Japanese invasion, the population of Dili was just

12,000 people, which grew to 30,000 by 1975, and over 100,000 during the Indonesian

occupation. See also Rank 1977, who argued that Dili was a migrant city even before the

Indonesian invasion in 1975, with as much as 75 per cent of the population composed of rural

migrants.

As in the past, migration pathways to the city are closely associated with kinship and

broader final networks, which rural householders draw on in urban centre to access temporary

accommodation and networks of patronage (Rank 1977, Field 2004).9 This trend was given

greater impetus in the months and years following 1999, when thousands of squatters took up

residence in abandoned Indonesian housing, especially in the western parts of Dili. Over time,

the sustained pattern of urban drift has seen the emergence of a distinctive residential make-up in

the capital, as Scambary makes clear, East Timor’s patterns of rural urban migration over the

past three decades have produced diverse hybrid micro societies, in that they maintain aspects of

traditional village systems such as clusters of kinship groups and vestiges of traditional authority,

but in abbreviated form, sharing space with other kinship groups in highly heterogeneous

societies reminiscent of more established urban and industrial societies. These concentrations of

familiar social relations built around extended networks of kinship and alliance to source

communities in the rural hinterland have been an important enabling mechanism to facilitate

migration to the city and corresponding circular patterns of return. But the reality of urban life

for most young migrants is frequently disappointing, and despite inclusion in urban networks of

support and patronage, youthful aspirants still face the reality of inconsistent itinerant work,

endemic, high youth unemployment, and strong competition for a limited number of jobs.

The absence of manufacturing industries with constrained private sector investment

leaves little room for absorbing the steady stream of high school graduates who enter the

employment market every year an impact estimated to be more than a quarter of the youth

population aged 15–29, or nearly 15,000 young people per annum (Thu and Silva 2013). The

result is a complex urban dynamic of competitive adaptation among socially aligned networks,

8 Foundation for Development Cooperation (2007) ‘Leveraging Remittances with Microfinance: Timor-Leste Country Report’ 9http://www.ilo.org/global/s tandards/subjects -covered-by-international -labourstandards/employmentpol icy/lang--

en/index.htm

the rise of youthful political discontent, the spread of opportunistic petty crime, alcohol

consumption, drug use and gang hooliganism (Scambary 2012, Kostner and Clark 2007).

In this challenging environment, there are opportunities for bright and connected young

people, but similarly, there are perhaps, many more who struggle to secure pathways to

successful urban livelihoods, and whose dreams end in disillusion and failure. As Guterres

(2003) has observed in his study of Timorese migrants to Dili, some of whom found the

transition eventually untenable, rural life may not be exciting, but it is relatively easy and

provides (Scambary 2013), has highlighted the dynamic, mobile and heterogeneous character of

the membership of many urban communities, as seasonal factors and continuous visits between

hinterland settlements and the city by school students who may return for vacations, or people

who participate in religious and ceremonial events. The impact of these dynamic processes

reaching a destructive high point in the 2006 crisis in East Timor when the fragility of the new

nation was exposed (Scambary 2009).

C. TIMOR LESTE ABROAD WORKERS

Since 2009 government trough SEPOPE had made a policy how to send its workers to the

oversees. According to SEPFOPE, Timor-Leste has sent 1,886 workers to Korea up until June

2015 of whom 340 have returned and 1,546 remain in Korea. The workers go for a period of

three years but may extend to a maximum of 4 years and 10 months. The program is open to

young people aged 18-39 years old, most being single. Fishing is the largest work category with

1,117 of 1,886 (59 per cent) of all workers (62 per cent of all men). Agriculture is the most

common category for women (74 per cent), and manufacturing is the occupation for 35 per cent

of men and 26 per cent of women. Just three per cent of men engaged in agriculture.10

Table 1: SEFOPE, data on distribution of workers from October 2009-2015

Source : SEFOPE, TL workers at abroad 2009-2015 10 http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=7469&lang=tp

The 98 female workers who have been sent make up just five per cent of all workers,

most working in agriculture. However since April 2013 no Timorese have been placed in

agricultural work, in spite of RDTL’s request to South Korea to re-introduce this type of work,

according to Chief of the Department of Overseas Employment of SEPFOPE. In preparation for

going to Korea, candidates first of all have to learn Korean language and take the Test of

Proficiency in Korean. SEPFOPE’s statistics show that between 2009-2015 a total of 8,638

candidates attended a course of Korean language, of whom 3,410 passed. Their score is valid for

two years so during this time they should submit their job application form to SEPFOPE.

D. TIMOR LESTE ECONOMIC GROWTH 2007-2015

Timor Leste experiences huge crisis on 2006, there were massive troubled between part of

west Timor and East Timor, generally the crisis implication trough domestic economic growth,

absolutely government could not maintain well local workers even more to provide field of work

for its societies. The crisis took long time during one and a half year, it was tends to rise up

number of unemployment in the country. Government began attempts to built more cooperation

with others country, mainly at labor sector and aims to reduce unemployment number and

absolutely to improve people is economic and financial necessary.11

11 Leveraging Remittances with Microfinance: Timor Leste Country Report Desember 2007

Tabel 2 : Timor Leste Social and Economic Indicators

source : The 2004 Census population and housing Timor Leste, UNDP human development report 2006

The 2004 Census notes the total population of Timor Leste was 923,198. For the same

year, the annual population growth rate was 3.2 percent and the total average fertility rate was

seven live births per woman. If the present annual growth rate continues, the population is

expected to double in approximately 20 years. Timor Leste has a high dependency ratio, Sixty

per cent of the population survive on less than US$2/day, and GDP per capita has fallen to about

5 percent,12GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the world. Employed 70% of the labor force.

The service Population Total population 923,198 (2004), Exports Coffee, oil and natural gas.

Major trading partners Australia, Europe, Japan, United States. Sector employs 28% (Ministry of

Labor and Reinsertion, 2007). thus the unemployment rate is set to grow even further (Ministry

of Labor and Reinsertion, 2007). Rural unemployment is relatively low (3.3% in 2001) when

compared to urban unemployment (20‐ 21%). However, youth unemployment in the urban

region of Dili and Bacau is extremely high, at 43% (Ministry of Labor and Reinsertion: 2007).13

12

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/10/21/timor-leste-gdp-forecast-over-next-three-years 13 Leveraging Remittances with Microfinance: Timor Leste Country Report Desember 2007

E. INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

The possibility of realizing aspiration futures among young rural migrants to the city remains

elusive and a significant challenge for government policy and Timorese society alike. However,

since the historic achievement of independence, a growing cadre of young Timorese have found

new pathways to comparative prosperity through international labor migration. Some of these

pathways have been promoted and sponsored through bilateral government programs with

regional countries such as Malaysia, South Korea and Australia. In the case of South Korea, for

example, East Timorese labor migrants are included among the 15 countries that have signed a

memorandum of understanding with South Korea to take up temporary labor opportunities,

mostly for unskilled employment, and all subject to annual quotas (Yoon and Jung 2013: 16). In

2012, for example, 485 East Timorese obtained work contracts, but these numbers are dwarfed

by migrant workers from other countries in Asia for the same year, such as Indonesia (6,110),

Vietnam (6,853) and Cambodia (8,047) (Yoon and Jung 2013: 17). Timor-Leste has also been

included in Australia’s seasonal worker program, directed mainly at Pacific Island communities.

It is designed to enhance employment opportunities for low-skilled, unemployed workers, and to

satisfy demand in the horticulture and tourism sectors for low paid, seasonal workers (DEEWR

2013). The pilot program was initiated in 2012, and some 50 East Timorese have participated in

work placements, which is a reasonable beginning. But recent evaluations suggest that

regulatory complexity for approved employers, and cost advantages of employing European

backpackers on working holidays over East Timorese workers, limits the effectiveness and scope

of the present program (Thu and Silva 2013). That said, for participants, the exercise has been

rewarding. According to Thu and Silva (2013), in 2012–13, a sample of Timorese seasonal

workers earned between AU$10,000 and AU$18,000 in their five to six month period of

contractual labor in Australia. These figures are well above any comparable remuneration that

they may have secured in Timor-Leste. Reportedly, these earnings provide a range of livelihood

benefits to participants and their families back home.14

Formal work exchange agreements enacted through bilateral agreements clearly offer labor

opportunities for young, low-skilled East Timorese workers, but in terms of addressing problems

of domestic under employment, the results to date have been underwhelming and limited in

14

http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/subjects-covered-by-international-labour-standards/employment-policy/lang--en/index.htm , diakses pada 19 July 2017

scope. Far more significant has been the dramatic rise of informal temporary labor migration of

young hopefuls who have left Timor Leste seeking shift work and low skill factory jobs in

Western Europe, especially the United Kingdom, North Ireland and Canada. Key to this

unexpected and surprising development over the previous decade has been the ability of

Timorese to secure Portuguese passports and thus eligibility to work in the European Union.

Following the remarkable achievement of independence and the decision by the Government

of Portugal to automatically recognize all East Timorese born before 20 May 2002 as Portuguese

citizens with associated entitlements, a path was opened to international travel and access to

employment in the European Union (Mc William 2012). Since the end of Indonesian occupation,

large numbers have accessed the migration pathway to the EU, drawn from many corners of

Timor Leste, including the rural hinterlands and towns where family networks and contacts in

Portugal have been instrumental in sponsoring initial participants ( Mc William 2012). Estimates

of the number of participants are difficult to gauge. (Shuaib 2008), in one study, estimated that

up to 800 young Timorese were leaving for overseas work every year, and while his study was

undertaken when the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was beginning to be felt in Europe, the flow

of Timorese labor migrants heading overseas has continued unabated. Young men make up the

majority of travelers, but young women are well represented many joining their brothers or

cousins along well versed networks of kinship and family. These days, thousands of Timorese

workers are dispersed around the EU, employed in a variety of low-skill jobs, shift workers in

food packing factories (for example, Tesco and Sainsburys) and manufacturing, meat processing

in Northern Ireland, cleaning, security and night porter work, car detailing, and restaurant

services.

Most live in group houses, sharing expenses and experiences, and keeping in touch with

distant relatives and friends through the modern miracles of Skype and social media such as

Facebook. The streams of Instagram images exchanged among relatives and friends in

cyberspace offer insights into a cosmopolitan modernity involving travel and adventure, which

encourages younger siblings and their friends back home to emulate their success. And if, in

reality, the images often mask less desirable and unfulfilling aspects of life in the EU the cold,

grey weather, homesickness, isolation, gambling losses, and discrimination, there is no shortage

of would be labor migrants waiting for news of their passport and support from sponsors who

might facilitate their journey to a better life.

F. REMITTANCE LIVELIHOODS

For most young Timorese migrants, the primary goal of overseas work is to generate savings

to support their families in Timor-Leste and to build a financial stake to secure their own futures

back home. Deirdre McKay (2007) has referred to the practice of remittance payments as

monetized expressions of care and obligations to family, and the evidence is clear to see in

certain contemporary settlements in Timor-Leste, where the bulk of new house construction is

funded directly through remittance transfers from sons or siblings diligently putting away a

sizeable portion of their wages to support their families at home.15

Los Palos in Lautem District is a case in point, where large numbers of its young people are

now working and living in the UK, and, in certain areas of the town, such as the Aldeias of Ira

Ara and Lere Loho, there is a widespread building and renovation boom underway (Mc William

2012). Financial transfers from committed savers are enabling many young families to fast-track

the construction of new cinder block housing and signal their success to their neighbors and

wider community. Maria Da Costa, for example, while living with her parents and young

daughter, has been able to construct a completely new house to lockup stage in just over 12

months, using the money her husband, Marito, transfers each month (US$500) from his job in a

local library in Oxford. His proficiency with English and a tenacious savings ethic has achieved

something they didn’t think possible when he embarked on his journey. There are many similar

stories, and they highlight one reason for the popularity of international labour migration to

Europe for young East Timorese. Not all people who make the journey are disciplined savers, of

course, and there are numerous stories of migrants and asylum seekers (suaka politik), who have

spent years overseas but fail to generate savings or send proceeds of their efforts to their families

in need. Gambling, partying and spending-up means that there may be little left over to remit

back home. Across the UK, including the towns and cities where Timorese settle for work, there

are typically numerous gambling and sports betting outlets (Ladbrokes, 888sport, Elite and

Skybet, among others) that are more than ready to relieve bored shift workers of their weekly

incomes. Gambling for young Timorese has a strong social aspect, they can gather after their

shifts to put a few pounds through the digital roulette machines, bet on the results of English

15 Leveraging Remittances with Microfinance: Timor Leste Country Report Desember 2007

football matches, or chance the quick pick lotteries. Rumors of big wins among Timorese players

that circulate among migrant groups and local Timorese networks is often enough to keep young

people feeding the machines. For those who sustain their commitment to family and their savings

targets, the flow of remittances through Western Union wire transfers are making significant

contributions to community livelihoods. Funds are regularly directed to support everyday

expenses and contributions to lifecycle rituals of kin and affine.16

In addition to new house construction and improving the material conditions of life, savings

and capital are also directed to supporting parents, siblings, spouses and children for everyday

consumption needs and associated costs. Where possible, participants also seek to build a

financial stake for future trading or microenterprises on their return home. According to Shuaib’s

study of those receiving remittances, some 45 per cent of households used the transfers to

support daily household consumption, 41 per cent for housing improvements, 30 per cent for

school fees, and 10 per cent for loan repayments. Most were also saving a portion of these funds

to direct to education expenses (75 per cent), housing improvements (35 per cent), weddings and

funerals (18 per cent), and business investment (10 per cent) (Shuaib 2008: 209).

These findings are highly consistent with more recent personal research on which this

chapter is based, and point to a growing significance of remittances for livelihood support and

everyday consumption. The role of remittance in supporting the education of younger siblings to

attend high schools in Dili and further afield in neighboring Indonesia is a further important

feature. This objective has long been a factor in Timorese rural urban migration, as Rank pointed

out in his survey of Dili in the 1970s. Then he noted that urban adaptation through education was

a key element of migration success, and all the network sets show an obviously overriding

concern for education. Furthermore, and despite Timor Leste’s tumultuous past, Indonesia has

become an increasingly attractive destination for young East Timorese seeking to secure

vocational training and educational qualifications. Drawing in part on earlier pathways for

education forged by young East Timorese during the Indonesian period (Bexley 2009), the new

transnational education migration is driven by a pragmatic parental assessment of relative costs

and benefits, as well as the familiarity of Indonesian educational institutions, language and

attendant cultural values.

16 An Interview Timor Leste abroad workers at UK via Messengers

Although supporting children in school or university in Indonesia is expensive for the

average Timorese family, lower living costs in Java and the perceived quality of education

services can make the total package a cost effective option. Bexley has noted, in 2009 at least,

that the Timor Leste embassy in Jakarta estimated there were some 3,500 East Timorese

studying in Indonesia, and the number is likely to have increased since then (Bexley 2009).

Young East Timorese appear to be enthusiastic participants in the process, related in part, no

doubt, to the popularity of Indonesian pop music and sinetron (televised soap operas) that have

huge followings in Timor Leste and contribute in no small way to contemporary experiences of

modernity and the shaping of youthful values and aspirations (Ostergaard 2005).

G. PROSPECTS FOR LABOUR MIGRATION

In his 2008 survey of 105 Timorese households receiving remittance flows, Shuaib made

a number of striking observations that speak to the growing importance of transnational labor

migration and the export income it generates. Among these findings, he noted, for instance, that.

Households with members working overseas are better off financially by many multiples than

households pursuing local employment, Western Union electronic transfers remitted some

US$370,000 per month into Timor Leste, predominantly from the UK. This amounted to an

estimated US$5 million per annum in 2008 now likely to be significantly higher 6317. The value

of inward remittances to Timor Leste makes migrant labor the country’s second largest non oil

export after coffee. These observations point to the growing importance of this livelihood option

for many young Timorese disillusioned with unemployment and the limited livelihood options in

their hamlets of origin or on the dusty streets of the towns and cities.

Labor migration to the distant EU is providing a bounteous and unexpected source of

income and remittance flows to thousands of beneficiary households, whose member’s lives

have been materially enriched through the practice.18 Despite the impact of the GFC, especially

in Western Europe, the slowdown has had limited effect on the outward flow of Timorese

recruits. Their willingness to tackle low-skilled, menial and factory line work means that they

can still access the comparatively higher wage opportunities on offer in the EU. If the

macroeconomic impact of these remittances remains relatively small in an economy so heavily

17

An Interview with Maria and her Husband stayed at North Ireland 18 The International labor organization Goals, Functions and Political impact, Werner Sengenberger

dependent on oil revenues estimated to be just 1.4 per cent of non oil GDP in 2006 (Shuaib 2008:

195) the revenue flow is only likely to grow and over time, contribute a sustained source of

economic support for multiple Timorese households with members overseas. Like its regional

neighbors in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, labor migration is likely to provide an important and

continuing source of supplementary. The sum included transfers of funds through the established

banks in Dili, such as ANZ Bank and the Portuguese Caixa Geral de Depositos trading as BNU.

income for many years to come. Its broadly democratic nature also contributes to expanded

education opportunities for many young Timorese and to breaking down the historical class

inequalities that have persisted between rural and urban residents for generations.

H. CONCLUSIONS

It has been 15 years Timor Leste is independence, unstable political turmoil had brought

significantly impact against domestic economic growth. Lowest GDP (5 % on 2016: world

bank), showed that the government could not fulfill yet its societies necessary, mainly to

realize the purpose of the government how to govern a country. Unemployment about 3,6 on

2010, and it kept raised up within last ten years, Policy of the Government of Timor Leste

through the Secretary of State for Professional Training and Employment Policy (SEPFOPE)

attempts to reduce unemployment, improve the quality and skills of human resources,

creating conducive working conditions for the workers through employment protection, and

elaborate the labour Code in accordance with the international provisions.

Associated with the demand of the labour market opportunities in developed countries,

the Government of Timor Leste use this opportunity to reduce the rate of unemployment

which has reached 3.6 % (SEPFOPE, 2010). To achieving this goal, the government has been

implementing some programs in the area of vocational training at existing training centres

and the implementation of overseas employment program. That is why within the last 10

years government conducted cooperation with EU, South Korea and Australia that focused

on labor in order to send young Timorese to these countries. The minimum wages

accordance to the international labour organization policies, within earlier last 5 years Timor

Leste abroad workers had been produced 50 per cent USD. And of course it was started to

help to reduce poverty and countries business trough remittances steams. The amount of

remittances used to build house, paying school fees, bought car, motor bike and others

necessary related.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Journals:

South Korea’s Employment Permit System A Successful Government-to-Government Model

Paper for presentation at the 2016 Australasian Aid Conference Experiences of young

Timorese as migrant workers in Korea By Ann Wigglesworth and Zulmira Fonseca

Increased Migration of Foreign workers to Timor-Leste is Not Well Regulated Mahein’s

Voice No. 76, 30th April 2014

Foundation for Development Cooperation (2007) ‘Leveraging Remittances with

Microfinance: Timor-Leste Country Report’

The Economic Journal, 115 (November), F324–F341.Royal Economic Society 2005.

PublishedbyBlackwell Publishing,9600GarsingtonRoad,OxfordOX42DQ,UKand350 MainStreet,

Malden,MA 02148,USA.

Report commissioned by the Low Pay Commission. Research in this report has

been conducted by Christian Dustmann, Tommaso Frattini, and Ian Preston,

Department of Economics and Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration

(CReAM), University College London.

Leveraging Remittances with Microfinance: Timor Leste Country Report Desember 2007

Review of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste by the UN Committee on Migrant

Workers during its 23rd Session (31 August – 9 September 2015)

Timor Leste Tax and Investment Guide 2014

Website :

http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/subjects-covered-by-international-labour

standards/employment-policy/lang--en/index.htm : ILO policies migration

http://timor-leste.gov.tl/?p=7469&lang=tp : SEFOPE Timor Leste, one of the higher

government agency handled labor affairs