COVID-19 Continues to Affect More Than 11 Million Workers in 2022: BPS

TheIndonesia.id - The Central Statistics Agency, or BPS, has reported that more than 11 million people in the country’s working-age population continue to be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 even though the figure has declined quite significantly from 2021.

According to BPS, as of February this year, the pandemic still affected about 11.53 million workers in Indonesia, but the figure declined by 39.63 percent compared to the number reported in the same period last year.

“The working-age population impacted by the pandemic is currently 11.53 million people, or decreasing 7.57 million from 19.1 million in February 2021,” head of BPS Margo Yuwono said on Monday, May 9, as reported by Antara.

BPS took into account four components in conducting their study, including the number of workers who are unemployed, people who are not part of the labor force, people who are temporarily unemployed, and those who experience reduced working hours – all of which are due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yuwono revealed that 9.44 million people were faced with reduced working hours in February 2022, making it the biggest COVID-related impact on the workforce.

“However, the figure declined from February 2021 at 15.72 million people,” he said.

Furthermore, 580,000 workers were temporarily unemployed in February this year, compared to 1.11 million in the same period last year.

Lastly, around 960,000 workers were unemployed and 550,000 people were not part of the labor force this year, while in last year, the figures were 1.62 million and 650,000, respectively.