Indonesia: Unemployment figure drops to 7 million

• Nov 06, 2018

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) announced on Monday that the unemploymentfigure declined to 7 million in August, down from 7.04 million in the same month of 2017. The unemployment rate was recorded at 5.34 percent.

“The unemployment rate in urban areas was higher than in villages,” said BPS head Suhariyanto in a press conference, adding that the number of manpower reached 131.01 million in August, up 2.95 million from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the number of employed manpower reached 124.01, which is 2.99 million more than in August last year.

The BPS data show that the informal sector is still very important for nationwide employment with a contribution of 56.84 percent, down merely 0.19 percentage points from August last year.

Hospitality and the food and beverage industry contributed 0.47 percentage points to the employment increase, followed by the manufacturing industry (0.21 percentage points) and the transportation (0.17 percentage points), according to BPS.

Meanwhile, the agricultural sector contribution declined by 0.89 percentage points, followed by the service sector (0.11 percentage points) and education (down 0.05 percentage points). (bbn)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/11/06/unemployment-figure-drops-to-7-million.html