Today, Indonesia stands as one of the most powerful digital economic powerhouses in Southeast Asia.
Bank Indonesia recorded digital payment transaction volumes reaching 5.22 billion in May 2026, up 28.14% year-on-year. Meanwhile, QRIS transactions – the country’s standardized QR payment system – increased by 95.10%.
However, beneath this rapid digitization lies a grim reality: 59.42% of Indonesia’s workforce remains in the informal sector, according to the National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas) published by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in May 2026.
This contrast suggests that the main challenge of the digital age is no longer about accelerating innovation, but about ensuring that these profound changes are captured in official statistics. As some Indonesian labor economists have noted, digital expansion has created more jobs, but not necessarily better jobs.
This is not a uniquely Indonesian phenomenon. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that around two billion workers worldwide still depend on the informal economy.
In Asia, where the leap into mobile technology has been extremely rapid, the region has become the global epicenter of what is now known as “digital informality”.
New face informality
The essential difference today is that the informal sector is no longer synonymous with traditional wet markets or isolated micro-businesses disconnected from the modern economy. Digitization has fundamentally blurred the lines between employee and employer, formal and informal enterprises, and domestic households and corporate entities.
This change is unfolding right before our eyes. In Indonesia, a growing number of people earn their living without a physical storefront, an official office or a registered business entity – the traditional basis of the conventional economy.
A housewife can sell food through live streaming on social media. A farmer can trade seeds directly through digital markets. A graphic designer can serve cross-border clients from the comfort of their own home. Content creators, affiliate marketers and digital freelancers have now become indispensable pillars of the digital landscape.
This evolution explains why statistical frameworks built in the 20th century are hitting a wall. For decades, economic statistics were compiled under the assumption that production was concentrated in factories, offices, brick-and-mortar stores, and formal corporations.
While very effective for tracking an industrial economy, this framework struggles in the digital age. As economic activity increasingly migrates to households, digital platforms and hybrid work models, conventional statistical categories are losing their ability to map modern realities.
The result is a dangerous policy blind spot. When a significant portion of economic activity slips under the radar of official data, governments run the risk of misinterpreting structural changes in the economy.
This does not simply degrade the quality of the data; it actively compromises policy accuracy. State support for digital MSMEs may miss its target, social safety nets for platform workers lag and workforce training programs risk becoming obsolete, disconnected from the demands of a rapidly changing labor market.
Rethinking the statistics of the digital economy
Indeed, countries around the world are facing similar dilemmas.
The OECD notes that digitization and the platform economy require a revised social contract and updated frameworks for understanding the labor market. At the same time, the World Bank has begun building a global database of the informal economy to address the challenges of measuring these emerging forms of work.
This transformation is unfolding alongside Southeast Asia’s rapid emergence as one of the world’s fastest-growing digital economies, which is projected to continue expanding strongly over the next decade, according to Google’s e-Conomy SEA report.
This regional challenge is particularly evident across Asia. According to the OECD, digital work platforms have expanded rapidly across the region, creating new income opportunities while blurring the lines between formal and informal employment.
From India and China to Indonesia, platform-based work has become an increasingly important source of livelihood, yet many of these new forms of work continue to fall outside conventional job classifications.
As such, countries across Asia face a common challenge: ensuring that official statistical systems evolve quickly enough to reflect the realities of an increasingly digital labor market.
It is in this global context that Indonesia serves as a compelling case study – not because its challenges are unique, but because they occur on a much larger scale. From India to China, developing Asian countries face the same fundamental paradox: an explosion of digital transactions that remains out of sync with employment data.
In Indonesia, rather than displacing the informal sector, digitization has transformed the way it operates. Countless micro-enterprises are expanding their market reach through digital platforms while maintaining the local, home-scale character that has long been the backbone of local economies.
Digital restructuring
If the structure of the economy has evolved so rapidly, the measuring instruments of the state must keep pace. Herein lies the strategic importance of the Indonesia Economic Census 2026. Its value is not simply in counting more businesses, but in redefining how the state conceives of economic activity.
Implementing the updated 2025 Business Classification System (KBLI), the census is designed to capture new business models, including platform-based enterprises and household economic activities that have historically escaped conventional statistical approaches.
Registration, of course, is not the destination. The technology and the business models it spawns will continue to evolve. Therefore, the modernization of national statistics should be seen as a continuous process. Better data doesn’t just exist to produce comprehensive reports; it serves as the foundation for policies that are more targeted, inclusive and adaptive to the changing world of work.
Ultimately, the challenge facing Indonesia is a global challenge. The digital economy is moving much faster than public institutions can realize. If the 20th century was about learning to count factories, offices and formal corporations, the 21st requires the ability to appreciate the economic vitality emanating from living rooms, kitchens, mobile screens and digital platforms.
In this light, the 2026 Economic Census is much more than a routine statistical exercise – it is a critical effort to ensure that economic governance does not lag behind the new ways people work and live.
Rabiul Misa is a junior analyst at Bank Indonesia. His work focuses on monetary economics, payment systems, financial inclusion, MSME development and public policy. His commentary has appeared in Kompas.id, Kompas.com, Tribun News, ANTARA News and Kumparan, covering topics including monetary policy, cross-border payments, digital finance, MSME development and regional economic development.
