Optimism in Indonesia as youth prospects improve amid economic recovery
- ‘Half my friends have full-time work, which makes me optimistic’; youth make up about 42 per cent of the 8.4 million people out of work
- Experts say nation ‘on track to recovery’ post Covid and doing better than other countries, with controlled inflation and subsidies to poorest citizens
In the first quarter of 2022, Indonesia’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.83 per cent from 6.26 per cent in the same quarter a year earlier, amid an improvement in the country’s economy after the effects of the pandemic.
The country’s youth accounted for almost half of the 8.4 million people unemployed, the total number out of work in the country at the end of March after a fall of 0.35 million in the first three months of the year.
He spoke to the Post after taking part in an ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute (formerly the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies) June 2 webinar: A Double Whammy: Structural Challenges and Scarring Effects of the Pandemic on Indonesia’s Labour Market.
Of the 8.4 million unemployed Indonesians in the first quarter of the year, 3.6 million, or around 42 per cent of them, were aged between 15 and 24.
That figure was “significantly” less than the same quarter in 2019 and 2020, though, with 48 per cent in 2019 and 55 per cent in 2020 of the total unemployed being youth, said Devanto, adding that these youngsters could be “an asset in supporting Indonesia”. (Figures for 2021 have not yet been collated).