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Trade, services sector cushion RI unemployment rate
Indonesia saw its unemployment rate slightly fall in February, thanks to a higher absorption rate of workers by a number of sectors, including trade and services, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has reported
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Indonesia saw its unemployment rate slightly fall in February, thanks to a higher absorption rate of workers by a number of sectors, including trade and services, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has reported.
The BPS announced Wednesday that the open unemployment rate (TPT) decreased to 5.5 percent in February, lower than the 5.81 percent posted in the same month last year.
The agency also reported that the country’s workforce had slightly fallen to 120.65 million of people in February of 2016 from 120.85 million in the same period of 2015, which represents a 0.16 percent decline.
Meanwhile, the total number of unemployed people had decreased to 7.02 million people in February of 2016 from 7.45 million people recorded in the same period last year.
The majority of the workforce, or approximately 38.29 million people, work in the agricultural sector, the data shows. Workforce numbers in this sector, however, declined by 5 percent from the 40.12 million workers recorded in the corresponding month last year.
“The mechanization of the agricultural sector has caused a workforce reduction,” BPS chief Suryamin said, adding that a similar reduction had also occurred in the industrial sector.
The BPS recorded workforce numbers in the industrial sector had dropped to 15.97 million in February this year from 16.38 million in the same month of 2015.
However, Suryamin added, the workforce reduction in the agricultural and industrial sectors could be balanced by the, also, significant labor recruitment increase in the trade and service sectors.
BPS noted an increase of 1.85 million of workers in the trade sector, to 26.65 million in February from 28.5 million recorded in the same month last year. It also reported that the workforce number in the services sector had increased to 19.79 million from 19.41 million.
Commenting on the data, a labor researcher at the Bandung-based (West Java) AKATIGA Center for Social Analysis, Indrasari Tjandraningsih, said that the mechanization of the agricultural sector, such as the use of combine harvesters—a machine harvesting grain crops—, was indeed the cause of workforce reductions in the sector.
“With using a combine harvester, 4 hectares of land can be harvested by only 7 people. Meanwhile, with the manual harvesting system that uses a power thresher, harvesting land of the same size requires up to 120 people,” Indrasari told The Jakarta Post, referring to research conducted by AKATIGA in the provinces of West Java, Central Java and South Sulawesi in 2013.
The widespread use of machines in the agricultural sector needs to be reconsidered as the majority of workers in the country work in the agricultural sector, she added.
According to BPS data, 31.74 percent of the nation’s workforce work in the agricultural sector. It is followed by the trade, service and industrial sectors, which employs 23.62 percent, 16.4 percent and 13.24 percent of the workforce, respectively.
The rest are represented by those working in construction, transportation, finance and other sectors. (vny)
