The World Bank (World Bank) revealed the causes of the wave of layoffs (PHK) in the Indonesian textile and digital industry. The World Bank's Chief Economist for Indonesia and Timor-Leste Habib Rab said, the phenomenon of a wave of layoffs in the textile industry was due to a decrease in sectoral demand, both domestic and foreign demand. "Several sectors have been negatively affected, especially what we hear is in the textile sector due to a slowdown in sectoral demand," he said during a press conference at the Energy Building, Jakarta, Thursday (12/15/2022).

Based on the results of a survey by the Indonesian Textile Association (API) from 1-16 November 2022, 149 out of 233 textile companies have reduced the number of employees.

The total is around 85,951 employees throughout Indonesia, of which 37,000 employees come from West Java.

Meanwhile in the digital industry, he said, the wave of layoffs occurred due to a decrease in people's consumption patterns that had occurred since economic activity returned to normal.

"There are cyclical challenges, even though the economy is growing fast, there are some that are experiencing a slowdown," he said.

However, if you look at the aggregate unemployment rate in Indonesia, the unemployment rate is close to the pre-pandemic Covid-19 figure from last August or September. For information, the storm of layoffs, especially in technology companies, has not seemed to subside.

Throughout 2022, there are at least 19 technology companies in Indonesia that have streamlined their employees with mass layoffs. Most recently, the JD.ID e-commerce platform laid off 200 of its employees on the pretext of responding to global economic challenges and the rapid changes in digital business. This layoff step is the second time the company has carried out.

Apart from JD.ID, giant technology company PT Goto Gojek Tokopedia Tbk or GoTo laid off 12 percent of its total employees or as many as 1,300 people.