Used Clothing Imports Surge 607.6% in Q3 2022, Threatening Indonesia's Textile Industry

The trend of thrifting, or buying secondhand clothes, has exploded in Indonesia in recent years. This is because most items sold in thrift shops are clothing and are very cheap.

Quoting import-export data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), the value of imported used clothing soared by 607.6% (year-on-year) in January-September 2022. The value of imported used clothing even surpassed that of imported knitted clothing and accessories, and non-knitted clothing and accessories. The import value of these two products actually decreased.

However, various parties believe that secondhand clothing products threaten the domestic textile industry. Anne Patricia Sutanto, the Deputy Chairperson of the Indonesian Textile Association (API), urged the government to immediately stop the illegal import of used clothing. "The regulations are already in place. It's just that we want certainty in law enforcement from the government," she stated during a hearing with Commission IX of the DPR (House of Representatives) on November 8, 2022.

Tens of thousands of workers in the domestic textile industry have reportedly experienced layoffs. Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) shows that the number of workers in this sector is indeed declining. This is evident from the data of the National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas) in August 2022.

"In the textile industry subsector, there was a decrease in the workforce from 1.13 million people in August 2021 to 1.08 million people in August 2022," said BPS Head Margo Yuwono in a virtual press conference on Monday, November 7, 2022.

This means that approximately 50,000 workers lost their jobs. The number is likely to increase, considering the news of layoffs in the textile industry began to spread in September 2022.

(read: Layoffs Haunt Indonesia's Textile Industry, These Are the Main Export Destinations for Ready-Made Clothing in 2021)