7 Million Unemployed Residents, DPR Criticizes Labor Policy

JAKARTA - Member of Commission IX DPR RI Nurhadi highlighted Al Jazeera's foreign media report which states that Indonesia is currently one of the countries with the highest unemployment rate for young people in Asia. This news is considered contradictory to the target of economic growth being pursued in the range of 5.2 percent to 5.8 percent.

"We should no longer talk about economic growth if in fact the people are losing their jobs. We urge the Government to immediately develop a strategy to reduce the unemployment rate in Indonesia, including youth unemployment," said Nurhadi, Friday, July 25.

Nurhadi then reminded that there are more than 7 million Indonesians in 2025 who are unemployed, even one million of whom are undergraduate graduates.

"The BPS data in February 2025 recorded that there are still more than 7 million open unemployed. And don't forget, 65 percent of them are young people. This is not an ordinary statistic number, this is a social time bomb !," he said.

According to Nurhadi, the government should not take the reference for the decline in the number of TPT in February 2024 from 4.82 percent to 4.76 percent in February 2025. However, the government must see that there are still 7 million unemployed people in Indonesia who continue to increase every year.

"The government must stop playing the imaging narrative. What is needed now is a real breakthrough in creating quality jobs, no longer ceremonial projects that are only good in reports but have zero impacts on the ground," said Nurhadi.

The member of the Commission in the DPR in charge of employment affairs also highlighted the efforts of the Ministry of Manpower that have not shown significant results to reduce unemployment and add jobs. According to Nurhadi, the programs issued by the Ministry of Manpower to eradicate unemployment in Indonesia have not been optimal.

Most recently, the Ministry of Manpower is known to be launching a School to Work Transition program designed to reduce the number of young unemployed.

"I see that our labor programs are increasingly not connected to the reality of the labor market. The ministry is busy with training, but the graduates of the training are not absorbed by the industry. This is a design failure! There must be a policy direction correction," said the legislator from the East Java VI electoral district.

Therefore, Nurhadi urged the government to develop a strategy to reduce unemployment directed at strengthening vocational based on real industrial needs. Including a dual training scheme that integrates training in educational institutions and real workplaces.

Nurhadi also encouraged the expansion of access to digital-based job training and a green economy in response to the increasingly automated and sustainability-oriented direction of economic transformation.

As well as reforming the labor protection system for the informal and vulnerable sectors, to adaptive social security, legal certainty, and empowering MSMEs as pillars of creating people's work.

"The construction of employment must be driven by a progressive and anticipatory cross-sectoral approach, not just curative," said Nurhadi.

Nurhadi also stated that the DPR through its supervisory and budgeting functions would continue to encourage the direction of employment policies to be truly in line with the aspirations of the younger generation, the real conditions of the field, and the long-term vision of national development.

"The decline in the unemployment rate must be an entry point to create a dignified work ecosystem, not just a figure political tool," said the member of the NasDem faction.

Nurhadi added that Commission IX of the DPR will summon related parties for work meetings and hearings in the DPR to find solutions to this unemployment problem.

"The House of Representatives Commission IX will not remain silent. We will summon all stakeholders, from the Ministry of Manpower, Bappenas, to the vocational institution, to ensure that the direction of this policy is in favor of the people who are job seekers, not on the interests of elites who play projects," concluded Nurhadi.