Employed, but unable to plan
Burhan lost his managerial position when the multinational manufacturer he worked for ended production in Indonesia. A graduate of a prestigious university, he now earns money through an online motorcycle taxi service, with unpredictable orders set against regular installment payments and household expenses.
His earnings support his wife and two children, as well as elderly parents whose pension cannot cover their daily needs. His education and professional experience remain, but he has struggled to find work that uses those skills and provides dependable pay.
Riefky, a macroeconomic researcher at the University of Indonesia's Institute for Economic and Social Research, stresses that driving does not diminish Burhan's dignity. The problem is the loss of financial security and the ability to plan for his family's future.
The piece connects that uncertainty to the aspirations of the young people who envisioned a united, self-determining nation in 1928. Nearly a century later, Riefky argues, independence also requires opportunities that allow today's generation to put its abilities and effort to use.
More jobs, uneven gains
BPS put Indonesia's open unemployment rate at 4.65 percent in May 2026, compared with 17.37 percent for the labor force ages 15 to 24. The figures distinguish workers such as Burhan, who have lost secure employment, from young people still seeking their first career opportunity. The opinion piece also notes that about 59.3 percent of the population works in the informal sector, where independent businesses can prosper but many workers lack stable earnings and adequate protections.
The World Bank's June 2026 Indonesia Economic Prospects report describes an expansion in employment that did not consistently deliver higher-productivity work. Employment increased by 1.9 million from August 2024 to August 2025, while unemployment eased to 4.9 percent. Almost half of those additional jobs were in lower-productivity activities, including agriculture and accommodation and food services; higher-skill sectors, including financial services, either stalled or contracted.
The report puts underemployment at 32.7 percent, defining it as employment involving fewer hours than workers want. That share has risen gradually since 2022, a trend the bank identifies as a sign of continuing weaknesses in job quality.
Pay measures show another limit to employment growth. According to the World Bank figures cited by Riefky, inflation-adjusted median wages declined an average of 0.5 percent annually between 2018 and 2025. Over the same period, the share of workers earning enough for a middle-class standard of living dropped from 14.5 percent to 7.1 percent. That measure concerns workers' earnings, not the middle class's share of the population.
The June report also describes divergent wage trends by skill level during 2018-25: annual real wages fell about 1 percent for medium-skilled workers and about 2 percent for high-skilled workers, while low-skilled occupations recorded gains of about 1.7 percent. The bank associates this divergence with the declining share of middle-class workers.
For the broader economy, the bank forecasts growth of 5.0 percent in 2026 as external pressures restrain investment and exports, followed by a recovery to 5.2 percent in 2027-28. Riefky's argument is that growth and investment must be judged by whether they improve workers' living standards, not simply by whether they expand.
Households carry the insecurity
For Burhan, supporting his parents leaves less room to save for his children. Riefky describes families as absorbing the shortfalls of both insecure employment and inadequate old-age protection, allowing one generation's financial vulnerability to pass to the next.
Drawing on Amartya Sen's 1999 account of development as an expansion of people's choices, the piece examines what disappears when necessities consume a household's income. Education may be postponed, savings for a business may never accumulate, and a home may remain unaffordable. Such losses can become apparent years later, after the opportunity to act has passed.
Separate population estimates also show pressure on the middle class. A February 2026 Mandiri Institute report, reported by Kompas.com, put its size at 46.7 million in 2025, down from 47.9 million in 2024. Its population share fell from 17.1 percent to 16.6 percent. Meanwhile, the aspiring middle class expanded by 4.5 million people to represent 50.4 percent of the population.
In October 2026, Government Communication Agency head Syahganda Nainggolan said about 11 million middle-class Indonesians had moved into the lower middle class. He said the issue would receive government attention in 2027, particularly through labor-intensive growth sectors.
Riefky argues that social assistance remains essential but cannot substitute for jobs that support a decent living. Protecting households from hardship and giving workers a route to improved living standards are distinct responsibilities, he writes.
Skills need opportunities
The opinion piece challenges the tendency to respond to employment problems mainly by urging individuals to obtain more qualifications, learn technology or start businesses. Those efforts have value, Riefky writes, but a larger pool of graduates does not itself create employers' demand for their expertise.
World Bank data cited in the piece show that the share of highly educated workers holding formal jobs fell from 74.1 percent in 2018 to 67.8 percent in 2025. Riefky interprets that decline as evidence that formal employment opportunities have failed to keep pace with the supply of educated workers.
He identifies two related policy tasks: generating productive employment on a large scale and ensuring that productivity improvements open the way to higher real wages and better conditions. Labor-absorbing activities often produce relatively little added value, while highly productive investments may directly employ few people. Employer competition, workers' ability to change jobs and their bargaining power also influence whether productivity gains reach households.
Support tied to job quality
Citing Dani Rodrik's 2022 work, Riefky calls for industrial policy to make decent employment a central objective rather than assume investment incentives will deliver it. He advocates partnerships with measurable goals that address businesses' specific constraints, including access to training, technology and markets.
Under that approach, evaluations would examine earnings growth, employment quality and benefits to suppliers and other connected businesses alongside hiring totals. Even capital-intensive projects can support productive employment through links with other sectors. Riefky identifies manufacturing, modern services and small businesses with growth potential as areas where such an approach could apply.
The piece also draws on Autor's 2024 work to address artificial intelligence, which can enhance human skills while also disrupting employment. Workers may need retraining, and a replacement job may not be immediately available after a layoff. Riefky therefore calls for both retraining programs and social protection during the transition between jobs.
