JAKARTA - The Association of Indonesian Manpower Services Companies (APJATI) on July 14 urged KP2MI to reconsider planned license revocations affecting 61 Indonesian migrant-worker placement agencies.
The association said the agencies, known as P3MI, were targeted because they had recorded no worker placements for one year. According to Bekasi’s local publication Media Patriot, APJATI asked the ministry to examine each company separately and allow time to correct deficiencies before imposing its heaviest administrative sanction.
KP2MI had previously published Ministerial Regulation No. 4 of 2025 on January 17, 2025. It permits the minister to revoke the license, known as SIP3MI, when a company has not conducted placement activity within one year after the license was issued. The provision refers specifically to the first year following issuance.
APJATI said some agencies had been unable to complete placements because of barriers outside their control, including restrictions on domestic-worker placements to parts of the Middle East, delays in approving overseas job orders and missing rules for some sectors.
The association's Secretary-General Maria Ginting said, “If the government’s own system is not ready, then that system must be fixed first, not place the consequences on P3MI.”
Japan is central to the association’s complaint. Maria said verification and approval of job orders for Japan and several other destinations could take up to one year, allowing vacancies to expire before recruiters could fill them. A January 27 KP2MI update listed Japan with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore as Indonesia’s five largest migrant-worker destinations in 2025.
The licensing dispute also affects the government’s effort to fill formal overseas vacancies. KP2MI said in an April 17 release that active SIP2MI records contained 327,658 overseas job opportunities as of April 15. Only 69,187 positions, or 21.12%, had been filled, leaving 258,471 vacancies open. The ministry separately recorded 296,948 migrant-worker placements in 2025 against a target of 259,144.
KP2MI’s technical sanctions guideline, dated February 5 and published on May 25, requires a sanctions team to identify alleged violations, verify documents and evidence, conduct further checks when needed and prepare a recommendation. The minister or agency head issues the final decision to revoke a SIP3MI.