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View all search resultsUnemployment figure subsides despite growing layoffs
Data from the Manpower Ministry in January showed a 13 percent layoff increase in 2025 compared with the preceding year.
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Office workers swarm the pedestrian underpass on Jl. Kendal, Central Jakarta, on Dec. 24, 2025. (Antara/Ika Maryani)
R
ecent employment data has pointed to an improvement last year as joblessness subsided in Indonesia, a trend that contradicts other data released by a different government institution and which shows growing layoffs.
Statistics Indonesia (BPS) head Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti revealed in a press conference on Thursday that the number of unemployed Indonesians had dropped by more than 110,000 people from 7.46 million in August to 7.35 million in November last year.
“The three business sectors that employed the most workers were the agriculture sector, trade and manufacturing industry,” said Amalia. The three sectors provided jobs for more than 60.5 percent of the country’s 147.9 million employed people.
The unemployment rate rested at 4.74 percent in November, down from 4.85 percent in August. The rate has been maintained well below 5 percent since February 2024 and has trended downward since the pandemic.
This improvement in employment went against the trend recorded in the layoff data released by the Manpower Ministry in January, which registered a 13 percent increase in layoffs in 2025 compared with the preceding year.
The layoff figures have been constantly climbing since 2022 and the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) has postulated that last year’s real layoff figure was higher than reported.
As opposed to the official figure of 88,519 people axed last year, the KSPI claimed that the real figure might amount to 100,000 workers as indicated in increasing claims on the pension program (JHT) under the Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan).
