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Indonesia sees unemployment drop to 5.61% in August
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Job expansion: Central Statistics Agency (BPS) chief Suhariyanto answers questions from journalists after a press conference at the BPS headquarters in Jakarta on Monday. (JP/Anton Hermansyah)
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ndonesia saw a lower unemployment rate in August with 5.61 percent of the workforce jobless, down by 57 basis points (bps) compared to 6.18 percent in the same period last year, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported on Monday.
BPS head Suhariyanto said the drop was mainly attributed to the expanding size of workers in informal sectors. Seasonal workers in formal sectors, such as agriculture and plantations, for instance had shifted to informal jobs, such as small retail traders and small food vendors.
"We saw a lot of mobility in employment. As the harvest season ended in May and June, many workers in the agriculture sector shifted to informal jobs in August," he said during a press conference in Jakarta on Monday.
The internet economy, he went on, had also helped create a significant number of jobs this year. Around 1.53 million new employment opportunities had been created in the trade and service sectors from August last year to August 2016, most of it coming from the e-commerce sector.
Suhariyanto said there were also 500,000 new employees in the transportation sector due to the rising popularity of ride hailing services such as Gojek, Grab and Uber.
As of August this year, Indonesia has 189.1 million people in the workforce. (hwa)
