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Indonesia: Open Unemployment Down to 5.86% in August: BPS

TEMPO.COJakarta – Indonesia’s open unemployment rate (TPT) fell to 5.86 percent in August 2022 from 6.49 percent in August 2021, head of Statistics Indonesia (BPS), Margo Yuwono, said on Monday.

“The employment condition is getting better, in line with the economy recovery,” he said at a press conference on the economic growth in the third quarter of 2022.

According to Yuwono, the number of unemployed people in Indonesia decreased to 8.42 million in August 2022 from 9.1 million in August 2021.

TPT is an indicator that is used to measure the number of workers who are not absorbed by the labor market and illustrates how severe the lack of labor utilization is.

A TPT of 5.86 percent means that there are around six people who are unemployed out of every 100 people in the workforce.

The latest decline in TPT has occurred consistently by gender and region. The TPT among the male workforce slid to 5.93 percent in August 2022 from 6.74 percent in August 2021, while the TPT among the female workforce declined to 5.75 percent from 6.11 percent.

Region-wise, there was a decline in TPT in urban areas to 7.74 percent from 8.32 percent and in rural areas to 3.43 percent from 4.17 percent.

The BPS head said that the TPT of most provinces in Indonesia was below the national level.

“The TPT of 9 provinces is above the national rate, while the TPT of 25 provinces is below the national rate,” he informed.

West Sulawesi province recorded the lowest TPT at 2.34 percent, while the highest TPT was seen in West Java province at 8.31 percent.

Furthermore, BPS recorded that the workforce aged 15–24 years had the highest TPT of 20.63 percent in August 2022. However, the TPT among the workforce aged 60 years and above was the lowest at 2.85 percent.

Meanwhile, based on the education of the workforce, the agency noted that the TPT among the graduates of Vocational High Schools (SMK) was 9.42 percent, the highest compared to other education levels.

The graduates of elementary school (SD) and those with lower education levels had the lowest TPT of 3.59 percent.

ANTARA