Joniansyah, Tangerang – More than 18 thousand employees from various companies in the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang are now unemployed. They lost their jobs because the companies where they worked closed down.

“The number of employees being dismissed continues to rise”, said Monang, the head of the Worker’s Welfare and Industrial Relations Bureau at the Tangerang Labour Office when speaking with Tempo in Thursday May 29.

Based on data from the Labour Office, [in addition to this] at least 1,300 garment factory employees have lost their jobs this year. In 2007 as many as 17,335 employees were dismissed. The thousands of employees come from scores of factories in the region which have closed due to bankruptcy. “Many companies have collapsed”, said Monang.

Monang said that included among the scores of companies that closed down in 2007-2008 were PT Natural Selaras, PT Dong Joe Indonesia, PT Menara Manis, PT Multi Metal, PT Kreasi Media Tama and PT Panca Swakarsa. The majority of these companies were active in the garment sector.

[Translated by James Balowski.]