1 Million People Returning To Work During The Pandemic, Improving Economic Recovery?

Worker illustration. (Photo: Angga Nugraha / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said that there was a fairly large workforce absorption in the period August 2020 to February 2021.

In a release from BPS, the unemployment rate per August 2020 was recorded at 9.77 million people. This number was later reduced to 8.75 million people in February 2021.

"This indicates that around 1.02 million people are no longer unemployed or already working", said Head of BPS Suhariyanto via video conference, Wednesday, May 5.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in February 2020 was mentioned at 6.93 million people.

"It's not fully recovered compared to now. But keep in mind that in February 2020 there has not been a pandemic, while now it has", he said.

Meanwhile, in terms of wages, there was a recovery trend during the pandemic, although it was not the same as during normal times.

In February 2020 the average monthly wage for workers was IDR 2.91 million. This value decreased in August 2020 to IDR 2.76 million and experienced an improvement to IDR 2.86 million.

Then from the provincial side, the highest labor wage is in the Riau Islands with IDR 4.3 million. Followed later, DKI Jakarta amounted to IDR 4.12 million.

Then, for the lowest wages occupied by the province of West Sulawesi which amounted to IDR 1.94 million, Central Java and DIY IDR 2.19 million, and West Nusa Tenggara IDR 2.21 million.

On this occasion, Suhariyanto also announced that Indonesia's economic growth was still in the red zone of recession with a score of minus 0.74 percent.

"Even though it is still growing negatively, the trend of improvement has been felt since the second quarter of 2020. This is a positive signal of national economic recovery", he concluded.