1.2 million Indonesian workers in a quandary as Covid-19 impacts 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 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to 195 million full-time workers, according to an International Labour Organization report published on April 7. - Antara

JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): The Covid-19 pandemic, which is spreading like wildfire in Indonesia, has taken not just lives but also the earnings of millions of workers, one month after the government announced Indonesia’s first two confirmed cases of the virus.

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.