How Indonesia’s Job Creation Law Reshapes University Internships

University internships sit between education and employment. They can give students practical skills, professional networks and a clearer sense of the legal sector. They can also create uncertainty when a student performs regular work without receiving wages, social protection or a meaningful learning programme.

Indonesia’s Job Creation Law, formally Law No. 6 of 2023 after the earlier emergency legislative process, changed several parts of the country’s employment framework. Its effects on internships are connected to broader rules on vocational training, fixed-term work, outsourcing and employer obligations. The law does not automatically turn every university placement into an employment relationship, yet it can influence how institutions and companies structure these arrangements.

For Australian readers, the issue may resemble debates about unpaid internships in Sydney law firms or vocational placements in Melbourne. Indonesian students, however, operate within a different legal and institutional setting, where university accreditation, ministerial regulation and labour-market informality can strongly affect the protection available in practice.

The Legal Position Of Internships

Indonesian internships are generally treated as part of vocational training rather than ordinary employment. A valid programme should have an educational purpose, a written agreement or documented framework, defined learning activities and supervision. Students should understand the duration, responsibilities, assessment method and support they will receive before beginning the placement.

The Job Creation Law has expanded the role of vocational training and strengthened the use of structured workplace learning. This may encourage employers to create clearer internship schemes. It may also make it easier for businesses to describe a student’s work as training, even where the student is carrying out routine tasks that benefit the organisation more than the student.

The distinction depends on the substance of the arrangement. A placement involving observation, guided research, skills development and regular feedback is easier to characterise as education. A student who replaces an employee, works fixed shifts, meets commercial targets and receives direct instructions without meaningful training may have grounds to question whether the arrangement is actually an employment relationship.

Opportunities And Risks For Students

A clearer statutory framework can improve access to workplace learning. Law students may gain experience in legal research, drafting, client intake, compliance, court administration or community legal assistance. Employers can also use internships to identify future recruits while universities can connect classroom learning with professional standards.

The risk is that legal recognition of training becomes a shield for unpaid or underpaid labour. Students may accept excessive hours because they fear losing academic credit, references or future employment. This is especially serious for students from lower-income households, who may be unable to accept placements requiring transport, accommodation or full-time availability without financial support.

The Australian comparison is useful but limited. Under the Fair Work framework, an unpaid internship must generally be a genuine learning experience or a lawful vocational placement, rather than a disguised employment arrangement. A student in Brisbane or Perth may also weigh an unpaid placement against minimum-wage work and living costs. Indonesian universities and employers need similarly concrete safeguards, even though the applicable legislation is different.

University Responsibilities And Agreements

Universities should not treat internship administration as a matter of matching students with companies. They have a responsibility to check host organisations, review learning plans and establish a channel for complaints. Academic credit should depend on educational outcomes, not on a student’s willingness to tolerate unsafe or exploitative conditions.

A written agreement should identify the parties, learning objectives, supervisor, schedule, permitted tasks, insurance or accident coverage, confidentiality duties and procedures for ending the placement. It should also state whether an allowance is available and who pays it. Clear documents help prevent the common argument that students accepted every condition simply by signing up.

Student councils can contribute by publishing model agreements, collecting anonymous complaints and explaining the difference between a training placement and ordinary work. Wider regional perspectives, including resources from In Med Andes, can also support comparative discussion about access to justice, youth participation and institutional accountability.

Employer Compliance And Student Protection

Host organisations should design internships around learning rather than staffing shortages. A law office should not use interns as permanent research assistants with no supervision; a company should not rely on interns to perform repetitive administrative work that would otherwise require paid staff. Tasks should increase in complexity as students develop competence, with feedback recorded throughout the placement.

Health and safety obligations remain important even where a student is not classified as an employee. Students may face risks while travelling, handling confidential information, attending court or visiting clients. Employers should provide orientation, appropriate equipment and a reporting process for harassment, discrimination and unsafe conduct. Confidentiality requirements must be explained without preventing students from reporting misconduct.

Students also need protection when asserting their rights. Concerns about internships can overlap with threats of dismissal, blacklisting or criminal complaints, particularly when a student exposes unlawful conduct. Guidance on defending student activists offers a relevant reminder that legal support and careful documentation matter when academic or workplace power is used to silence criticism.

The Australian Comparison And Wider Reform

Australian universities often require students to complete risk assessments, host agreements and placement checks before a professional placement begins. A student attending a semester placement in Melbourne may receive formal supervision through the university, while a graduate seeking work in Sydney may compare an internship with paid entry-level roles advertised through the local market. These expectations highlight the importance of transparency, even though Indonesian institutions cannot simply copy Australian rules.

The comparison also shows why unpaid status should not be the only issue. A placement may be unpaid yet genuinely educational, or paid yet poorly supervised and unsafe. The central questions are whether the student is learning, whether the host is meeting its legal obligations, whether the university is monitoring the arrangement and whether the student can leave without academic retaliation.

Public discussion should therefore combine legal analysis with evidence from students. Complaints, placement data and host evaluations can reveal whether the Job Creation Law is improving training or shifting risk onto young people. Dema Justicia’s research and studies provide a useful model for connecting policy debate with student experience and institutional accountability.

The practical effect of the Job Creation Law will depend less on its label than on how universities, employers and regulators apply it. A compliant internship should have a genuine learning purpose, written terms, supervision, safety protections and an accessible complaint process. Before accepting a placement, students should obtain those details in writing, keep records of their hours and tasks, and seek university or legal assistance when the work begins to look like ordinary employment without ordinary protection.