Government Creates Unemployment Due To Appointment Of CPNS Postponed To Nine Months

A number of participants in the 2024 Basic Competency Selection (SKD) for Civil Servant Candidates (CPNS) for the 2024 Ministry of Foreign Affairs formation at the Central State Civil Service Agency (BKN) Office, Jakarta, Wednesday (16/10/2024). (ANTARA/Aprillio Akbar/nz/aa)

JAKARTA The government's decision to postpone the schedule for the appointment of Candidates for Civil Servants (CPNS) and Government Employees with Work Agreements (PPPK) is feared to increase the number of temporary unemployed.

The Ministry of State Apparatus Empowerment and Bureaucratic Reform (Kemen PANRB) announced the postponement of the schedule for the appointment of CPNS and PPPK as a result of the 2024 selection.

The decision was taken by the Ministry of PANRB after a meeting with Commission II of the DPR, Wednesday (5/3/2025). The appointment of CPNS was postponed until October 1, 2025, while the PPPK will be appointed on March 1, 2026.

"The government proposes to adjust the schedule for the appointment of CASN as an ASN employee with an estimate at the end of 2025 or in early 2026," said PANRB Minister Rini Widyantini.

The decision to postpone the appointment of CPNS certainly makes applicants restless. Moreover, some of them have also been resigning from their previous work so that they are threatened with not having jobs and income for months.

Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) Bhima Yudhistira said that public income was threatened with a decrease of IDR 10.4 trillion due to delays in the appointment of CPNS.

"This means that people's purchasing power is at risk of going down because the government creates pseudo unemployment for CPNS," said Bhima via text message.

The postponement of the appointment of CPNS has the potential to temporarily increase the unemployment rate, or called pseudo unemployment, especially for those who have resigned from their previous jobs.

Bhima Yudhistira said that the postponement of the appointment of CPNS and PPPK would have a chain effect on the national economy. This will have an impact on the welfare of CPNS directly, purchasing power and sluggish business benefits, and ultimately disrupt the welfare of private employees indirectly.

According to the CelIOS study, there will be a loss of more than IDR 6.76 trillion if this delay continues until October 2025. This figure is obtained if ASN's basic salary is IDR 3 million per month after deducting taxes and adding various allowances.

If the delay occurs for nine months, from March to October, it means that there is a potential income per ASN person lost of Rp. 27 million.

"In terms of total ASN income, which has the potential to be lost due to the postponement of the appointment of Rp. 6.76 trillion," said Bhima.

In addition, entrepreneurs are also greatly disadvantaged because the salary and allowances that CPNS should be able to spend on various basic necessities, housing and electronics are potential losses.

Not only that, the results of the CelIOS simulation also see the impact of delaying the appointment of CPNS in the labor sector. It is estimated that there will be 110 thousand other workers who will be affected.

"About 110 thousand workers should enjoy the benefits when there is a turnover of money with the appointment of CPNS on time. But due to delays, the effect is actually the possibility of reducing these 110 thousand workers," said Bhima.

As a result of this decision, said Bhima, the government created pseudo unemployment.

"The status is CPNS but is unemployed for nine months. Some have also been redesigned from previous work. Even though the function of opening CPNS is to maintain labor when private conditions are sluggish due to many layoffs," said Bhima.

The postponement of the appointment of CPNS which was originally scheduled to be carried out in March 2025 to October 2025 or March 2026 raises a big question mark. What is the reason for delaying the appointment of CPNS for up to nine months?

Bhima Yudhistira explained the reason. According to him, the government is experiencing two acute problems. First, the opening of the CPNS formation as many as 250,407 positions was carried out before the new administration of President Prabowo Subianto.

"This means that changes in program priorities, and reshuffles of government spending allocations in the Prabowo era have an impact on the formation of ASN needs, because in the end the mismatch (is not suitable) for needs," he said.

Second, the efficiency of government spending (agency measures) is the main reason for the government to postpone the appointment of CPNS. With the APBN spending efficiency target of IDR 306 trillion (not including Danantara capital), employee spending is one of the targets of extreme savings.

The budget efficiency that has an impact on delays in the appointment of CPNS cannot be separated from three main factors; the failure of state revenues, especially post-choliax problems and falling commodity prices; the waste of infrastructure development in the Jokowi era has an impact on widening the APBN deficit; debt burdens that penetrate Rp1,350 trillion including debt due and interest on debt must be sought from savings.

"Who has suffered from the delay in the appointment of CPNS? Of course, prospective civil servants who have hoped, have already resigned from their previous work, are disappointed because they have become pseudo unemployed for 9 months," said Bhima ending.