TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said a number of countries are beginning to see a rise in unemployment. The increase is due to the declining activities of the manufacturing and service industries in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United States is among the countries experiencing the highest increase in unemployment. In America, the number of jobless people increased to 10.4 percent from last year's 3.7 percent.

"Some are even predicting it could reach 15 to 20 percent, this is the largest unemployment rate in world history, comparable to an economic depression," Sri Mulyani said a press conference on the state budget in Jakarta, Friday, April 17.

The minister said that Italy currently has the highest unemployment rate of 12.7 percent, followed by (10.4 percent), and the Euro Area (10.4 percent).

Asian nations are also experiencing waves of layoffs. Japan's unemployment rate rose to 3.0 percent, and South Korea to 4.5 percent, the same as Hong Kong.

According to Sri, 1.24 million of them are formal sector workers and 265,000 are informal sector workers.

However, she did not say the percentage of Indonesia's unemployment hike because of the new coronavirus pandemic. Two days ago, Sri Mulyani had predicted that, in a worst-case scenario, 5.2 million people would become unemployed. In 2019, the BPS recorded that the unemployment rate in Indonesia was 5.28 percent or around 7.05 million people.

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