Unemployment and Poverty Rates Remains Despite Growing Economy

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Chairman of the KAHMI Entrepreneurs Association (HIPKA) Kamrussamad, requested all respective stakeholders to pay attention to the unemployment and poverty rates, which have not decreased significantly in the past few years in Indonesia.

"We all know that the unemployment and poverty rates have not experienced any significant decline in the past five years, even though economic growth has started to improve," Kamrussamad said in a discussion on "Economic Outlook 2023" in Jakarta on Monday, January 9, 2023.

Kamrussamad stated that Indonesia needed to encourage quality economic growth to create new jobs and reduce unemployment and poverty in the coming years.

He hoped that HIPKA, as a forum for entrepreneurs from various regions in Indonesia, can cooperate with the government to encourage the creation of various new jobs.

"We want to encourage higher quality economic growth, so that it will have an impact on creating jobs, reducing unemployment, and reducing poverty," said Kamrussamad.

On the same occasion, the Head of the Supervision Agency for Bank Indonesia (BI) Edhie Purnawan, said that 2023 is a momentum for Indonesia to encourage growth in various sectors so it could reduce unemployment and poverty rates.

According to Edhie, the central bank of the United States (US) Federal Reserve tends not to be too aggressive in raising its benchmark interest rate in 2023. Edhie asserted that such conditions can become a momentum for Indonesia to accelerate growth.

Edhie stated that BI would continue to maintain the stability of the rupiah exchange rate, keep inflation stable, and encourage the payment system and Indonesia's sustainable economic growth.

Meanwhile, a member of the Board of Commissioners of The Financial Services Authority (OJK) Friderica Widyasari, said that the OJK had formed 482 Regional Financial Access Acceleration Teams (TPAKD) in various regions in Indonesia, to encourage regional economic growth and improve people's welfare.

"We encourage businesses within the financial service to do business matching," said Friderica.

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has recorded Indonesia's unemployment rate at 5.86 percent or as many as 8.41 million people as of August 2022, which is higher compared to the number recorded previously at 8.40 million people in February 2022.

BPS also recorded that the number of Indonesian people living in poverty was 26.16 million or 9.54 percent in March 2022. Meanwhile, MSMEs were recorded to have contributed 61.1 percent to the national GDP and 97.1 percent to employment.

ANTARA l IMAJI LASAHIDO

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