2006  2007  2008  2009  2010  2011  2012  2013
Unemployment in Indonesia
(percentage of total labor force)
 10.3   9.1   8.4   7.9   7.1   6.6   6.1   6.3

Sources: World Bank and Statistics Indonesia

The Indonesian labor force is forecast to increase from 118.2 million people in August 2013 to 119.9 next year. This implies that the number of Indonesians that enter the labor force will become smaller. In 2014, an extra of 1.7 million Indonesians will search for a job, while in previous years about 2 million Indonesians per year were added to the country's labor force. This slowing growth is caused by more Indonesians pursuing education in combination with less Indonesians dropping out from school.

          2010         2011         2012         2013¹
Labor Force   116,527,546   119,399,375   118,040,000   118,190,000
- Working   108,207,767   111,281,744   110,800,000   110,800,000
- Unemployed      8,319,779      8,117,631      7,240,000      7,390,000

¹ data from August 2013
Source: Statistics Indonesia

In 2013, Indonesia's unemployment rate actually increased from 5.9 percent in March 2013 to 6.25 percent in August as the slowing economy was not able to translate to significant job creation. This was the first time since 2005 that Statistics Indonesia had to release an increased unemployment rate. A worrying sign is that job availability in the country's manufacturing sector has declined (for the first time in five years).

Visit our Unemployment in Indonesia section

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