Jakarta – Most retailers feel the pinch of people's weakening purchasing power during this year's Idul Fitri celebration, as sales of various products have declined.

"Almost all businesspeople complained about quite a significant decrease in sales compared to last year," Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani said in Jakarta on Monday, as reported by tempo.co.

Sales of batik products, for instance, dropped by 20 percent compared to last year's Idul Fitri. "[Businesspeople] said this was the first time sales had plunged this low," he continued.

Hariyadi is of the view that the lower purchasing power was caused by shrinking formal-sector employment, as the workforce absorbed by industries reached 2 million while the surplus of newly issued and revoked BPJS Ketenagakerjaan memberships stood at 20,000 as of April.

"That means workforce absorption [in the formal sector] is very low. The government should pay attention to this, as shrinking formal employment will automatically affect purchasing power, because they usually have higher spending power [than informal sector employees]," Hariyadi said.

Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution admitted that the retail sector might not be blooming as strongly as a few years ago.

"However, [business] transformation in the retail sector is rapid, so there must be one business that slows while others are [growing] faster," he said. As long as commodity exports recovered, he went on, people's consumption would also increase. (prm)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/06/27/idul-fitri-sales-disappoint-retailers.html