Textile Factories Go Out of Business During The Pandemic

The sofa and mattress textile factory warehouse were tightly closed and weeds began to grow due to no longer operating since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pekanbaru, Wednesday (13/10/2021)/Photo by Raudhotul Husna

Pekanbaru - The Covid-19 pandemic is an epidemic that attacks almost all corners of the world, including Indonesia. The result is not only an impact on health but also on all aspects of human life. One of them is in the Indonesian economy.

The fate of the textile industry in Indonesia continues to decline due to the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic, many factories have been forced to go out of business and are threatened with being unable to operate permanently. This of course has a big impact on the fate of the Indonesian economy.

As we know, the trade war in the global market is getting more and more threatening for small and medium-sized textile factories coupled with this pandemic. Consumer demand for textile products during this pandemic fell sharply in line with the decline in consumer income as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak.

One of the factories affected by the Covid-19 pandemic is the Garuda Sakti sofa and mattress textile factory, Pekanbaru, Riau (13/10/2021). Since the beginning of the enactment of PSBB (Large-Scale Social Restrictions) in early 2020, factories have started to experience a crisis even though it is still on a small scale. However, as time went on and the Covid-19 Pandemic did not end, finally in mid-September 2020 this sofa & mattress textile factory officially stopped operating and threatened to no longer operate permanently or completely closed.

Initially, this factory began to lay off some employees to reduce budget expenditures, but unfortunately, this policy still cannot be a solution to keep this factory operating. As a result, many employees have lost their jobs and have difficulty finding replacement jobs during the current pandemic.

This sofa & mattress textile factory in June was reported to have run out of cash around 60% due to stagnating export and import payments. These conditions continue to encourage and become additional triggers so that this factory goes bankrupt and has to go out of business in September 2020.

At least hundreds of employees have changed their status to unemployment and have added to the worsening fate of the Indonesian economy for the past 2 years. Not only that, but a number of crimes are also increasingly rampant due to the high unemployment rate and the lack of job vacancies during the pandemic.

As many as 50% of these factory workers are reported to have switched professions to become homeworkers and opened their own small businesses. However, the fate of the other 50% of factory workers is still on the verge of starvation. This is supported by the PSBB and PPKM policies which have made it increasingly difficult for unemployed former factory workers to find their new jobs.

Based on the confession by one of the former sofa & mattress factory workers, Mr. Raka, "previously this factory was running smoothly even though there were a few obstacles, but it didn't have to be closed like it is now. However, after being hit by a pandemic, it finally turned out like this, I hope this factory will be able to operate again as usual and I can return to work as a permanent employee there," he said in an interview with other factory workers. Tuesday (13/9).

Writer & Editor    : Raudhotul Husna

Photo by Raudhotul Husna