Celios Highlights Importance of Social Security for Labour-Intensive Industry Workers

The Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios) has highlighted the importance of protection and provision of social security, particularly for workers in labour-intensive industries including textiles, garments, footwear and leather (TGSL).

“Based on DecentWorkCheck survey data in the TGSL industry analysed by Celios, it shows that social security and occupational health protection for workers in Indonesia has declined,” said Celios Director of Public Policy/Fiscal Justice Media Wahyudi Askar when contacted in Jakarta on Monday.

Media detailed that 29 percent of workers do not have pension security, 8 percent are not covered by death security, and 6 percent do not yet have work accident security.

In addition, 59 percent of workers are estimated to still lack old-age security by 2030.

“From the work environment side, 40 percent of companies do not yet have clinics at work sites, while 16 percent of workers have never participated in Occupational Health and Safety (K3) training,” said Media.

Celios has provided a number of recommendations following these findings, one of which is for the government to ensure enforcement of the right to organise in accordance with International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 87 and 98.

Furthermore, he said strengthening trade unions through legal protection and facilitation of social dialogue will improve workers’ bargaining position in determining fair wages.

On the other hand, he said Media also highlighted the increase in formal or full-time workers that occurred as of May 2026.

However, he hopes this can be further improved, considering the increase compared to the February 2026 period was only 0.03 percentage points.

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded that 98.98 million people worked full-time (66.80 percent of the total working population) as of May 2026.

“Another interesting data point, the number of labourers rose by 342 thousand, and own-account workers by 14 million. But full-time workers only rose by 0.03 percent. This means the increase in labourers and own-account workers is most likely workers with working hours below 35 hours, or doing odd jobs,” said Media.