COVID-19 hiring trends in Indonesia and SEA

Five out of six tech sectors experienced positive employee growth during the pandemic, while the category that experienced negative growth was travel (-14%), research by RevoU noted.

COVID-19 has no doubt impacted the employment landscape around the world, with Indonesia  no stranger to it. 

In fact, according to data by the Central Statistics Agency, cited in a blogpost by RevoU, a total of 1.62mn people in Indonesia were classified as unemployed in February 2021, due to COVID-19.

That said, RevoU's analysis, using LinkedIn Premium insights, did reveal positive growth in certain industries, particular those in the technology field.

Overall, the research involved six key technology sectors - healthtech, edutech, e-commerce, fintech, transportation, and travel, examining both positive and negative growth in brands such as Shopee, Klook, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, DANA, and more.

The following trends were uncovered:

• Five out of six vertical technology industries experienced positive employee growth during the pandemic (April 2020 - April 2021), while the category that experienced negative growth was travel (-14%).
• The top two categories that experienced the highest employee growth during the pandemic were healthtech (26%), followed by edutech (21%).
  For the other three categories, e-commerce and transportation experienced employee growth of 14%, while fintech grew by 4%.
• While Shopee has the highest number of employees recorded (23,032), employee growth during the pandemic still reached a high rate of 78%, a 21% increase from the period before the pandemic.
• Klook experienced the most significant slowdown in employee growth before the pandemic (100.73%), compared to during the pandemic (-29.42%).

Photo / RevoU