Purbaya Ogah Gives Additional Stimulus for Sectors Affected by Layoffs

JAKARTA - Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa ensures that he will not provide additional special stimulus for sectors affected by the Termination of Employment (PHK).

He reasoned that the wave of layoffs that occurred was not due to a new economic shock, but was an impact of the weakening demand that occurred. According to him, the weakening of demand has occurred for a long time in a fairly long period.

"Layoffs occur when demand is very weak. It happened 10 months earlier, the first 9 months of last year, more, last year alone, the previous year was also bad, this year the first 10 months were also slow, that's the picture of our economy at that time," said Purbaya at the Ministry of Finance Building, Tuesday, December 23.

He explained that the layoffs that have occurred so far are due to the demand in the economy being at a very weak level. This condition has been going on since 2024 and then continued until early 2025.

However, Purbaya said the government was also encouraging economic recovery through adjustments to fiscal policies that were more in line with the central bank's policy direction. He hopes that with economic recovery, it can increase demand and business activity.

Purbaya also assessed that access to working capital was the main challenge for the business world. He also reminded, when demand began to improve, financing constraints could potentially hinder business recovery and labor absorption.

Previously, the Ministry of Manpower (Kemenaker) through the Director General of Industrial Relations and Labor Social Security, Indah Anggoro Putri, asked the Minister of Finance Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa to prevent a wave of mass layoffs in the textile industry.

Indah said the textile industry is still a major contributor to labor absorption.

In reality, however, almost 80,000 workers in the sector were affected by layoffs.

Indah said this was quite different from President Prabowo Subianto's original intention to provide many incentives and facilities for the business world such as social security contributions for employment to the wage policy which was set directly by the President.

"With these various reliefs, it is hoped that layoffs can be avoided. If layoffs still occur, workers can no longer claim Job Loss Guarantee (JKP) optimally, so they risk not getting any protection," explained Indah.

On the other hand, Indah added that the country had actually prepared a JKP scheme that was considered good for protecting workers who lost their jobs. However, the scheme will lose effectiveness if layoffs continue to occur massively.