TheJakartaPost
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PSBB uncertainties in Jakarta hit small businesses hard
Most of the roughly 600,000 small businesses in Jakarta sell food and beverages and they are expected to get hit the hardest by the reintroduction of large-scale social restrictions (PSBB).
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Oh so quiet: A mall in Senayan, Central Jakarta, is relatively empty of customers as retail businesses face the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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wenty-year-old Ananda Aurora Kaherunnisa, seeing that business for her small taichan satay eatery had begun to pick up again, made the decision to rehire two workers who were previously furloughed.
Not long after, she learned about Jakarta’s decision to reimpose full-fledged large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), reversing the previous path of transitional PSBB. The transitional PSBB, which began in June, were implemented to allow the economy to partially reopen under certain health protocols.
“We had returned to conventional [sales] as we entered the new normal under health protocols. But with the return [on Sept. 14] of the PSBB, we are shaken again,” Ananda told The Jakarta Post in a phone interview on Friday.
Ananda’s satay stall, Sate Taichan Tbob, located in Cilandak, South Jakarta, recently saw sales surpass 4,000 skewers per day from less than 2,000 skewers per day when the business was forced to sell only online. She furloughed the two workers to offset a 60 percent drop in revenue when the city was under full PSBB from April to June.
The Jakarta administration’s plan to reintroduce the PSBB to prevent the healthcare system from collapsing is likely to hit small businesses like Ananda’s hard. The provincial economy already contracted 8.22 percent year-on-year from April to June.
Jakarta residents’ mobility was down 23 percent at retail and recreation locations, 16 percent at workplaces and 38 percent at transit stations on Sept. 6, compared to the start of the year, according to data from Google.
