Rising Despair Among the Unemployed in Indonesia (2020-2023)

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) regularly releases national unemployment data encompassing four groups:

1. Unemployed individuals actively seeking work;
2. Individuals who have accepted a job but have not yet started;
3. Individuals preparing to start a business; and
4. Individuals who have given up hope of finding a job.

The last group, discouraged workers, has tended to increase since the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to BPS data analyzed by the Ministry of Manpower, before the pandemic, in February 2020, the number of discouraged workers in Indonesia reached 324,000. This represented only 4.69% of the total unemployed at that time.

However, after the pandemic broke out, in August 2020, the number of discouraged workers nearly doubled to 602,000, and their proportion rose to 6.17%.

The number surged further in August 2021 and August 2022, where discouraged workers exceeded 2 million, representing approximately 22-33% of total national unemployment.

In 2023, the number of discouraged workers began to decrease, but it remains higher than before the pandemic, as shown in the graph.