This is the second in a series of Occasional Discussion Papers launched by the ILO Jakarta Office in the Spring of 1999 to assist Indonesia with ideas and analysis which could contribute to its uphill task of recovery from the socially devastating financial crisis. The paper cautions readers not to rejoice at the rather deceivingly low officially available unemployment statistics (5 million unemployed) as nearly 10 million additional unemployed workers remain totally unaccounted for in this figure. When the missing workers are included, the true magnitude of open unemployment shoots to a staggering 15 million workers (15 per cent of 102 million work force) as compared to only 5 million workers (5.4 per cent of 93 million work force) in August of 1998 as reported in officially published statistics. Since the workers who work as little as one hour a week are officially recorded as employed, it is little surprising that another 9 million underemployed workers (working less than 35 hours a week) in August 1998 are willing to accept extra work. This really means that as many as 24 million workers (or one quarter of the entire adjusted labour force of 102 million) were in need of work in August of 1998. The paper also examines the socio-economic profiles of the workers made redundant by the crisis, and reviews the labour market dynamics and changing employment structures in terms of skills, sector, gender, age, prior work experience and regional variations. The analysis of unemployment is extended to a review of the trends in real wages of workers with jobs and living standards of households to measure the social impact of the crisis more comprehensively. However, the paper does not furnish the employment-promotion strategy or package of policies which has been attempted elsewhere1 .