SURABAYA – The Chairman of The House of Regional Representative of the Republic of Indonesia (DPD RI), AA LaNyalla Mahmud Mattalitti, emphasized the need for special treatment to increase economic growth and absorption of human resources (HR).
LaNyalla referred to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) which reports the high unemployment rate in Indonesia.
“There must be extraordinary ways and efforts to reduce the unemployment rate. Which means, we need to push more progressive economic movements. On the other hand, human resources also need to be continuously improved,” said LaNyalla during his activities in Surabaya, East Java , Tuesday (21/2).
BPS reported that the unemployment rate in Indonesia reached 8.42 million people in August 2022.
According to the data, West Java is the province which contributes most unemployment with a rate of 8.31 percent, followed by the Riau Islands (8.23 percent), and Banten (8.09 percent)
“This number will increase every year. Moreover, in 2023, there will be school and university graduations, and there is also the potential for layoffs due to the threat of a global recession,” said LaNyalla.
The DPD RI member from East Java considered the fact that the high unemployment rate was in contrast to the government’s claim that said there had been a significant absorption of the labor force as a result of economic growth of 5.9 percent in 2022.
Another saddening fact is the number of vocational high school (SMK) graduates is the biggest contributor to unemployment in Indonesia.
“In my opinion, there needs to be even greater effort to increase economic growth in order to suppress even greater unemployment,” said LaNyalla.
The Open Unemployment Rate (TPT) as of August 2022 reached 5.86 percent–about 8.42 million of unemployed people spread throughout Indonesia.
That means there are around 6 unemployed people out of 100 people in the workforce.
Based on the gender, there were 5.93 percent of male unemployed and 5.75 percent female.
Even so, BPS recorded TPT in 2022 decreased compared to August 2021, namely 0.81 percent for men and 0.36 percent for women.
When viewed by age group, the population aged 15-24 years is recorded in the TPT category by 20.63 percent in 2022.
This number is higher than the population aged 25-29 years (3.36 percent) and 60 years and over (2.85 percent).
