Jakarta (TIP): Indonesia suffered its first recession in over two decades in the third quarter and millions of people lost their jobs over the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic battered Southeast Asia’s largest economy, the statistics bureau said on Thursday.
Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by a slightly more than expected 3.49 per cent year-on-year as household consumption fell while investment also dropped in the third quarter, official data showed. Economists in a Reuters poll had expected GDP to fall 3 per cent after a 5.32 per cent contraction in the second quarter. While Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said in a press conference “the worst is over”, pointing to a pick-up in quarterly growth, the statistics bureau said some 2.67 million people had lost their jobs in the year to August due to COVID-19. A 9.8 per cent rise in government spending helped soften the blow but economists called on more stimulus to help lift the economy out of the doldrums. (Reuters)