Exports and employment in Indonesia: The decline in labor-intensive manufacturing and the rise of services

Introduction Employment generation has been a major challenge for Indonesia since the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 (World Bank 201 Oa). Manufacturing in particular now plays a much smaller role in creating jobs than it did in the Soeharto era. The contrast is especially marked compared with the decade prior to the crisis. Fewer people have moved out of agriculture than before the crisis and it has been left to services to pick up the slack created by the demise of manufacturing.