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Read also: Ranks of Jobless Expected to Swell to 11 Million in Indonesia Ida expects 12 million
to 13 million people to find themselves out of work in Indonesia as the pandemic continues.
"Indeed we do have a challenge which is automation. It will cause jobs to be lost and new
employment opportunities to arise thus we have to continue transforming ourselves to meet the
future demands of the labor market. The government has been working on upskilling and
reskilling programs.

"Total unemployment in Indonesia could reach between 12-13 million individuals." Ida explained
that the passage of the Job Creation Law served to overcome the country's challenges by
encouraging more investments from domestic and foreign investors coupled with enhancing the
quality of the Indonesian labor force.

Read also: President Joko Widodo Signs Indonesia's Controversial Job Creation Law "If the
human capital is not prepared, then it won't solve the problem. Other than a conducive business
climate, we must improve our workers. The government is working in parallel to do both, one of
them is through the provision of mass vocational training." According to Indonesia's Central
Statistics Agency, there are a total of 138 million workers in Indonesia as of August 2020 -- 128
million working individuals and 9.7 million unemployed workers.

Unemployment in Indonesia surged to 7.07 percent compared to the year-on-year figure for
August 2020. Read also: Government Wants to Raise Educational Attainment of Indonesian Labor
Force Ida emphasized how the government has been buckling down on tackling unemployment
in Indonesia for the past five years include new obstacles from the Covid-19 crisis. "It is clear
that the pandemic has created a massive challenge for the Indonesian labor force on top of
existing challenges such as a high percentage of workers in the informal sector"

"There is also the challenge of having 57 percent of the entire population having a low education
of middle-school and below as well as limited skills."

(Writer: Mutia Fauzia | Editor: Bambang P. Jatmiko) Source:

https://money.kompas.com/read/2020/11/21/153000926/menaker--karena-pandemi-jumlah-
pengangguran-bisa-mencapai-13-juta-orang.

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