Indonesia sees 1.2 million workers furloughed, laid off in virus-hit economy

Workers sew garments at a factory in Bogor, West Java, in September 2018. The COVID-19 crisis is expected to wipe out 6.7 percent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to 195 million full-time workers, according to an International Labor Organization (ILO) report published on Tuesday. (Antara/Yulius Satria Wijaya)

Jumari, a 61-year-old who works in a shoe factory and lives in Jakarta, has not received his daily wages for over two weeks and will likely not receive his April salary at all. The factory has been shut, and he and his colleagues had been told to stay home.

His boss claimed the dismissal was “not the company’s will” given that COVID-19 had affected almost all of the world’s countries, Jumari said. He is now depending on last month’s wages to pay for his family’s daily needs.