The trend of thrifting or buying used clothes has mushroomed in Indonesia in recent years. The reason is, most of the items sold by thrift shops are in the form of clothes and have very low prices. Quoting BPS export-import data, the import value of used clothes skyrocketed 607.6% (yoy) in January-September 2022. The large import value of used clothes even beat the import value of clothing and accessories (knitted) and clothing and accessories (non-knitted). . The import value of these two products has actually decreased.

However, various groups assess, used clothing products can threaten the domestic textile industry. API Deputy General Chair Anne Patricia Sutanto asked the government to immediately stop the import of illegal used clothes. "The regulations already exist. We only want certainty about law enforcement from the government," he said in a hearing with Commission IX of the DPR, on November 8, 2022.

Tens of thousands of workers in the domestic textile industry were reported to have experienced layoffs (PHK). Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) show that the number of workers in this sector is declining. This can be seen from the August 2022 National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas) data.

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

This means that around 50 thousand workers lost their jobs. The number is likely to increase, given the news that a wave of layoffs in the textile industry began to spread in September 2022.