A precarious position - Indonesia’s workers in the pandemic

On this episode, we hear from leading Indonesia experts about the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on jobs, particularly on vulnerable workers in the country’s massive informal sector.

As elsewhere in the world, Indonesia’s devastating COVID-19 health crisis is having a major impact on the country’s economy. The Indonesian government projects that five and a half million of its citizens could lose their jobs as a result of reduced economic activity, with many of these being workers from the country’s massive informal sector. With limited access to social security or healthcare, this crisis will leave many of Indonesia’s most vulnerable people on the brink. But with reported infections recently exceeding 100,000 and some of the lowest testing rates in the world, the future remains deeply uncertain for many in the Southeast Asian nation. On this episode, we hear from leading Indonesia experts - special adviser to the Indonesian Minister of Finance Dr Titik Anas, Dr Chris Manning, and Joanna Octavia - who discuss the impact the crisis is having on jobs in the country.

This episode is based on a live recording of an event at Crawford School of Public Policy’s Indonesia Project, ‘Jobs and pandemic: the case of Indonesia’. You can access the full recording at Crawford.anu.edu.au or on the Crawford School of Public Policy YouTube channel.

Dr Titik Anas is a Special Adviser to the Indonesian Minister of Finance and a Lecturer at Universitas Padjadjaran. Her research interests lie in international trade issues, macroeconomics, industrial organisation, investment policy and small-scale business development.

Joanna Octavia is a PhD scholar at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research at University of Warwick and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Indonesia.

Dr Chris Manning is an Honorary Associate Professor in Crawford School of Public Policy's Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at The Australian National University. His research focuses on labour markets. regional development, poverty, and economic development in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Martyn Pearce is a presenter for Policy Forum Pod and the Editor of Policy Forum.

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