The employment sector has continued to improve since 2020 with a significant decline recorded in the size of the working-age population affected by the pandemic besides improvements in job creation, Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah has said.

At least 29.12 million people in the working-age population were affected by COVID-19, including those who became unemployed or experienced a reduction in working hours as of August 2020. However, by August 2021, their number had shrunk to 21.32 million.

“Praise God, in August 2022, the number of working-age people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic dropped significantly to 4.15 million people,” Fauziyah informed Commission IX of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) during a hearing here on Tuesday.

An improvement was also recorded in job creation, according to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), she added.

Data showed that the size of the working population in Indonesia reached 135.30 million in August 2022, an increase from 131.05 million in the same month the previous year. Most of the workers or 66.6 million were employed in the tertiary sector, which includes trade and services in August 2022, she informed.

In comparison, the number of workers employed in the primary sector, such as agriculture and forestry, reached 42.23 million and in the secondary sector, such as industry and construction, 28.47 million.

However, the majority of the working population was in the informal sector, which showed an increase compared to the previous year.

There were 55.06 million people working in the informal sector in August 2022, an increase from 53.14 million people in 2021, the minister said.

Meanwhile, the number of workers in the formal sector increased to 80.24 million in 2022 from 77.91 million in 2021.

“In general, job creation after the COVID-19 pandemic increased by 4.25 million people. However, the largest contribution to job creation and absorption came from the tertiary business sector and the informal sector,” Fauziyah said.

Source: Antara News