Indonesia’s import value of used clothes skyrocketed 607 per cent year on year from January 2022 to September 2022.

The trend of thrifting or buying used clothes at low prices has mushroomed in Indonesia in recent years. The large import value of used clothes even beats the import value of knitted and non-knitted clothing and accessories.

However, imports of used clothing products are threatening the domestic textile industry. Tens of thousands of workers in the domestic textile industry have been retrenched. In the country’s textile industry there has been a decline in the workforce from August 2021 of 1.13 million people to 1.08 million people in August 2022. This means that around 50,000 workers have lost their jobs. The number is likely to increase, given the news that a wave of layoffs in the textile industry began to spread in September 2022.

The global crisis as a result of the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war is also being felt by the textile industry in Indonesia.Indonesia’s textile exports have dropped dramatically after the Russia-Ukraine war. The loss of this export market has made textile companies in Indonesia overstock. Because, on the other hand, the domestic market is not available since it is flooded with imported products. So this condition causes domestic textile products to go nowhere and the impact of which has been that textile companies in Indonesia are experience overstock. This has also caused textile companies to take policies to lay off their employees.