Trade Union Reports Nearly 50,000 Textile Industry Workers Hit By Layoffs This Year

Illustration of textile industry (ANTARA) workers

JAKARTA - The Confederation of Nusantara Trade Unions (KSPN) noted that nearly 50,000 workers in the textile and textile product (TPT) industry were laid off from January 2024 to early June.

"Actually, almost 50.000 (real workers). Well, just a lot of people don't want their company's name to be exposed, they don't want to," said KSPN President Ristadi on Sunday, June 23.

Previously, KSPN said that 13,800 workers in the TPT industry had been laid off.

Ristadi mentioned the reason the company did not want to be exposed, because it would disrupt the trust from banks and buyers.

"The most risky thing is actually (trust) buyers. Buyers want their orders to be safe and the order is completed. If they hear the factory has layoffs, then orders can be revoked and transferred to other companies, there is a possibility of that," he said.

Ristadi said the number of workers affected by layoffs was 49,206. The locations most layoffs were in West Java and Central Java. "Because the centrality of the TPT industry is the largest in West Java and Banten," he said.

According to him, layoffs in the TPT industry have reached an emergency stage, especially for domestic market-oriented companies.

"This domestic market continues to be more massive (with) imported goods. Clothing, textiles, footwear from outside continue to flood our domestic market," said Ristadi.

Chairman of the Indonesian Textile Association (API) Jemmy Kartiwa Sastraatmaja once said that the textile company was contributed by the Minister of Trade Regulation (Permendag) Number 8 of 2024 concerning the Third Amendment to the Regulation of the Minister of Trade Number 36 of 2023 concerning Import Policy and Regulation. This rule, he said, is detrimental to the industry industry industry TPT.

According to him, Permendag 8/2024 is more in favor of general importers because there are no more technical consideration rules (pertek) under the authority of the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin).

Even though this Pertek aims to control the flow of imported goods. However, if there is no Pertek, then imported goods are out of control, and destroy the domestic industry.