If you’re among the more than 1 million people who make Nike’s sneakers and apparel around the world, the company says you should be able to support your family. You should earn enough to pay your living expenses and have some discretionary money left over. If your factory wages don’t cut it, your employer should have a plan to get you there.

But Nike’s expansion in Indonesia over the last decade has directly undermined these goals, an analysis by ProPublica and The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

Over the last decade, employment at factories supplying the world’s largest athletic apparel brand expanded dramatically in regions of Indonesia where, according to one leading estimate, the minimum wage is less than the amount workers need to live on. Meanwhile, Nike’s supply chain shrank overall in places that pay this estimated living wage, our analysis found.

The trend shows how the movement of multinational corporations to countries with ever-lower labor costs is being replaced, in some cases, by movements within a country that can achieve major savings and improve the bottom line.

Nike’s suppliers employ 280,000 people in Indonesia, the company’s second-largest production center.

From 2015 through last year, these suppliers shed around 36,000 jobs in places where the monthly minimum wage exceeds or comes close to a living wage. In these high-wage areas, which include the capital of Jakarta, the minimum typically equates to about $300 a month.

By contrast, the company’s supplier workforce grew by nearly 112,000 in parts of Central and West Java with local minimum wages that are typically about $165 a month — far from what’s considered enough to live on. Dozens of workers employed by Nike suppliers in Indonesia told the news organizations the minimum is about all they make.

“If it’s very labor intensive, then you go where labor is cheapest,” said Nurina Merdikawati, a lecturer in the Indonesia Project at Australian National University. In Indonesia, she said, “that’s going to be Central Java.”

Other brands have also moved to Central Java and other low-wage regions of Indonesia in recent years and continue expanding there, local news organizations have reported.

For Nike, the trend threatens the jobs of the existing factory workforce elsewhere in the country. Last October, more than 2,000 workers were laid off by Victory Chingluh, one of Nike’s longtime suppliers near Jakarta. In 2024, another 1,500 workers were cut by a Nike shoe supplier nearby, Adis Dimension, according to local news reports.

Labor advocates say the geographic shift is concerning because the Jakarta area has a stronger union presence that ensures working conditions and wages get closer attention than in less-developed places like Central Java.

At Victory Chingluh, three employees told the news organizations that the fear of more job cuts hangs over their work. They said the company is building a new factory in Cirebon, in West Java, where the minimum wage is 45% lower.

Over the Past Decade, Nike’s Workforce Ballooned in Areas Where Workers Do Not Make a Living Wage

Factory employment shrank in the areas near Jakarta where the minimum wage is considered enough to meet basic needs.

Employees said when they were offered a choice between keeping their jobs and accepting severance packages during layoffs last year, workers were willing to take the buyout, fearing that they wouldn’t get anything if the factory closed altogether.

That happened in 2018 when one Nike supplier near Jakarta, Kahoindah Citragarment, shut down without paying workers their full severance after Nike pulled its orders, an investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium found. The factory’s South Korean parent company, Hojeon, eventually agreed to pay workers $4.5 million after labor advocates argued they were legally owed separation pay. Hojeon did not respond to requests for comment.

At Victory Chingluh, two union leaders said in December that they anticipated another 5,000 layoffs at a company that once employed about 15,000.

“Almost all employees here are worried about that,” one of them said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions from talking to reporters.

The leaders said they’ve been told the factory being built in Cirebon could be ready by 2027. They said they’ve been told it’s for an expansion — even though their factory recently lost thousands of jobs.

Victory Chingluh did not respond to questions. Nike said in a statement that it works closely with suppliers during layoffs to minimize disruptions. “We mandate that suppliers pay all statutory severance, social security, and other separation benefits required by local law and often assemble working groups — which may include civil society, unions, and local governments — to aid in proper execution,” the company said.

Business leaders near Jakarta have voiced concern about the wage........

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