Indonesian private tutor Patricia has been learning German for two years, armed with a dream of leaving for Europe and driven by a lack of opportunities, economic stagnation and little hope at home.
She is one of thousands of Indonesians on social media promoting a popular hashtag that translates as “let’s just escape for now.”
Anger at the quality of life in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy — a nation of 280 million known for pervasive corruption and nepotism — has stirred student protests, and driven young and middle-aged professionals to seek jobs abroad.
Photo: AFP
“After working for so many years, my income remains about the same ... meanwhile my needs are increasing,” said the 39-year-old in the capital, Jakarta, who declined to give her surname. “I don’t own a house or car ... if I keep working like this, it will probably never be enough.”
In the past month, the hashtag has picked up steam. It has racked up thousands of mentions and reached more than 65 million accounts, analytics firm Brand24 said.
The outpouring has coincided with student-led protests against wide-ranging government budget cuts by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
Savings have been channeled into a new multibillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund — that reports to the former general.
There were nearly 7.5 million unemployed people in Indonesia in August last year, according to the latest data from the statistics agency.
That has stoked anger against a perceived poor quality of life, as the divide between the emerging nation’s rich and poor grows wider, and the middle class is squeezed.
“After many strange policies and the change of president, I have shifted to feeling like I have to move abroad. It has become a primary necessity,” said Chyntia Utami, a 26-year-old technology worker in Jakarta. “I really feel it. I don’t get social assistance, and I have limited money to spend. Working is just about surviving day by day, month by month, not working with passion.”
Some Indonesians are taking more physically demanding jobs abroad to escape.
Randy Christian Saputra, 25, left an office job at a multinational consulting firm to do manual labor on a tomato farm in Australia.
“I’m tired of the system in Indonesia. If we look abroad, they usually have a better system,” he said.
Poor living standards in Jakarta encourage others to leave.
“The longer I stay in Jakarta, the harder it is because of pollution or traffic jams. It has more to do with the living standard,” said Favian Amrullah, a 27-year-old software engineer, who is leaving for a start-up in Amsterdam next month. “I am exhausted, and feeling hopeless.”
Some foreign companies are trying to capitalize on the trend, including Japanese recruitment firms posting online seeking to attract the most talented.
Experts said social media offers Indonesians an outlet where they feel heard.
“This showed the public’s emotion,” said Ika Karlina Idris, associate professor at Monash University Indonesia.
She said the hashtag highlighted “the public’s concerns about jobs and nepotism,” as well as at “haphazard public policies.”
The uproar sparked criticism from some government ministers. One even told those who wish to leave they should not return.
“Just run away, if necessary, don’t come back,” Indonesian Deputy Minister of Manpower Immanuel Ebenezer told a reporter last month.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pro-Prabowo influencers have also spread disinformation, aiming to undermine the credibility of protesters. A fact check team found more than a dozen TikTok videos pushing the baseless claim that student protesters are “paid,” which attracted more than 8 million views.
Pro-government and pro-Prabowo content creators then posted reaction videos amplifying the misinformation on YouTube and TikTok, garnering more than 2 million views.
Patricia remains undeterred, applying for a volunteer post in Germany in the hope that she can find a paid job once there.
“I want to fight there for a better job, life, a better income,” she said. “When I have a place there ... no, I won’t be returning to Indonesia.”
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
RSS