Industries in Indonesia hardest-hit by COVID-19

It comes as no surprise that hospitality and tourism would be among the hardest-hit industries as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

According to a survey by JobStreet.com, the three industries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of retrenchment and temporary breaks in employment were:

• Hospitality/catering (85%)
• Tourism/travel agency (82%)
• Advertising/public relations/marketing services (82%)

The survey also revealed, being a tourism hotspot, Bali was the country's hardest-hit region in the country. As government set travel restrictions in place, the island saw up to 79% retrenchments or temporary breaks in employment.

The same survey also found that across Indonesia, 86% of employees reported that COVID-19 has affected their workplace, citing pay cuts, cancelled bonuses, and pay freezes as their biggest hurdles. In particular, those working in small organisations and in the education sector seem to be the most negatively affected in terms of remuneration.

Aside from changes in compensation, lockdowns have forced employees to quickly adapt to working from home.

While there were positive benefits to continuing work from home instead of going out to the office, taking jobs home also brought a new challenge - changes in an employee’s scope of work.

On one hand, the need to be more agile imposed more work responsibilities to almost a quarter of respondents, particularly those working in the banking and financial services sector.

On the other hand, 55% said they were given fewer tasks or work hours, which may translate to smaller earnings for those compensated for time-based output.

Interestingly, those in roles focused on driving revenue—such as sales and marketing—also experienced reduced work hours. 

COVID-19 left Indonesians in a bind with almost two in five Indonesians having been permanently retrenched. Meanwhile, one in five of those who are still employed have been temporarily laid off.

Those who have been most vulnerable to these changes include employees who were not working full-time, on lower salaries, and had not completed a year of service pre-coronavirus. With these sudden changes in employment, many Indonesians cited lower levels of happiness.

In fact, job happiness dropped significantly to 49% after the COVID-19 hit, whereas before the crisis took a toll, the job happiness index of Indonesian employees was high at 89%.

Photo / 123RF

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