BPS Records Employment Absorption Increases By 3.02 Million People A Year

Deputy for Balance and Statistics Analysis of BPS Edy Mahmud explained data on the state of Indonesian employment in Jakarta, Friday (5/5/2023). (ANTARA/)

JAKARTA - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) noted that employment increased by 3.02 million people in a year, from February 2022 to February 2023. "“There is an absorption of 3.02 million workers in a year. This means that there are 138.63 million people working in February 2023," said Deputy for Balance and Statistics Analysis of BPS Edy Mahmud in Jakarta, Antara, Friday, May 5. The total population working consists of 92.16 million full-time workers, 36.88 million part-time workers, and 9.59 million unemployed. The trend of the proportion of full-time workers continues to increase from year to year, with this year's achievement of 66.48 percent. Previously, the proportion of full-time workers was recorded at 64.20 percent in February 2021 and 65.20 percent in February 2022. In terms of sector, the highest absorption of labor occurs in the provision of accommodation and food and drink as well as other service activities, which absorb 0.51 million people each. Other service activities, according to Edy, include arts, entertainment, recreation, and consumption of goods and services. "This is in line with the recovery of tourism activities and household activities for employers," said Edy. Meanwhile, in terms of working population distribution, the highest distribution occurred in the agricultural, trade and processing sectors with a value of 29.36 percent, 18.93 percent, and 13.58 percent, respectively. Edy added that the proportion of the population working in informal activities continued to increase. In February 2022, the percentage of informal workers was recorded at 59.97 percent, while formal workers was 40.03 percent. Then, the percentage changed to 60.12 percent for informal workers and 39.88 percent for formal workers in February 2023.

According to Edy, the growth of informal workers was driven by an increase in workers with their own business status of 0.83 percent on an annual basis (year-on-year/yoy). Thus, the distribution of self-business workers was recorded at 20.67 percent, to rank second after workers/employees/employees at 36.34 percent.