Why are Dream Jobs a Difficult Reality for Indonesian Youth?

The recent chaos at a job fair held by the local government in the city of Bekasi in West Java revealed a depressing picture. More than 25,000 job seekers crowded into a venue jostling for 2,500 vacancies. For many Indonesian youths, their dreams of landing meaningful, stable, and fulfilling jobs feel increasingly out of reach in today’s economy. Millions of young graduates are trapped in uncertainty as they juggle informal jobs or part-time gigs, or compete fiercely for scarce full-time positions.

Why is finding their dream jobs challenging for Indonesian youths today?

Part of the answer lies in structural weaknesses in Indonesia’s economy. Notably, Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded that informal workers comprised 59.40 per cent of the total working population as of February 2025. This is comparable to figures from February 2024 (59.17 per cent) and August 2024 (57.95 per cent). Of the 18.4 million young workers aged 15-24 years old, some 8.3 million (45.1 per cent) worked in the informal sector (as of February 2024); of this, 61 per cent (5.07 million) were unpaid.

Some clues to how this affects Indonesian youth lie in the results of the 2024 Youth and Civic Engagement in Southeast Asia Survey, conducted by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in six Southeast Asian countries last August to October. In their national sample, some 72.4 per cent of Indonesian university students surveyed said that finding their ‘dream’ or preferred job was “difficult”. This percentage was the highest among the six country samples; when combined with the 3.59 per cent of Indonesian respondents who said it was “impossible”, more than three-quarters (76 per cent) revealed significant frustration with the job market (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Southeast Asian Youth: Perceived Ease of Finding ‘Dream’ Jobs

Some Indonesian youth face difficulties in securing any job at all: about 72 per cent of Indonesian respondents considered it difficult to find jobs, versus 3.78 per cent and 20.23 per cent of respondents respectively who reported that it was “very easy” or “fairly easy” (Figure 2). These responses confirm the high unemployment rate among Indonesian youth (at 16.16 per cent), which is more than three times the national unemployment rate (at 4.76 per cent).

Figure 2. Southeast Asian Youth: Ease of Finding Jobs In-Country

The youths’ difficulty in finding their dream jobs is the result of structural mismatches, societal expectations, and systemic flaws that shape Indonesia’s labour market. Universities across Indonesia annually produce many graduates (an average of 1.8 million per year) who might lack skills that align with industry needs. Some 80 per cent of university graduates in Indonesia worked in fields unrelated to their majors in 2022; as of August 2024, 842,378 of Indonesia’s unemployed were university graduates. While degrees in business, law, or social sciences remain popular, employers want technical and vocational skills that are in short supply. Indonesia’s Higher Education Database (PDDikti) shows that there are fewer science, technology and mathematics (STEM) programmes (13,047) than non-STEM majors (16,979). Thus, many youths end up unemployed or accepting positions for which they are over-qualified or not trained for.

The youths’ difficulty in finding their dream jobs is the result of structural mismatches, societal expectations, and systemic flaws that shape Indonesia’s labour market.

Worse, job opportunities are concentrated in urban areas, especially Jakarta and its surrounding areas, which encourages youth urbanisation. This exacerbates competition in already crowded cities and leaves those in rural areas with few options to pursue their dream careers. The uneven distribution of industries across the urban-rural divide further limits choices for rural youth caught between migrating to big cities to compete in a saturated job market and staying in their hometowns with limited opportunities. The lack of fairness and transparency in recruitment is another obstacle; this includes opaque recruitment practices and nepotism. Even job fairs disappoint youth, as recently happened in Bekasi, given the odds. These experiences likely reinforce their feeling that the system is unfair and that effort does not always lead to opportunity.

Societal expectations play a major role: for many families, dream jobs are narrowly defined as positions in government, corporate offices, or other respectable professions that offer stability. Youth who might succeed in creative fields, entrepreneurship, or emerging industries often feel pressured to pursue mainstream paths, only to face disappointment when those doors remain closed. For example, despite some perceptions that being a civil servant is no longer a preferred career, particularly for millennials (born 1981-1996) and Gen Z (born 1997-2012) youth, in 2024, over four million Indonesians – albeit not all of them youthful – applied for 600,000 positions. Clearly, stable jobs are few and competition is fierce.

All these factors may create a deep sense of pessimism among Indonesian youth. Disappointment at being unable to land their dream jobs risks creating a generation of “angry youth” — in the form of their feeling disappointed, apathetic, and distrustful of institutions. This can be dangerous, as it diminishes individual potential and weakens the country’s ability to harness its youths’ energy and creativity.

Indonesia must address the lack and poor quality of available job opportunities. Expanding job creation outside urban centres, systematically reforming the education system to meet industry needs, and ensuring fairness and transparency in job recruitment are crucial first steps. At the same time, Indonesian society must broaden its definition of what constitutes a good job to embrace new sectors and diverse career paths. For a country whose future development depends on securing the livelihoods of its youth, ensuring that they can pursue meaningful careers is not only an economic but also a moral concern.

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