This paper makes use of the notion of a Turning Point first developed by Arthur Lewis in 1954 to examine labour change in Indonesia before and after the Asian financial crisis. The paper deals with employment, wages and productivity trends, with a focus on agricultural and informal sector employment. Some evidence was found of a tightening of labour markets in the pre-crisis (AFC) years, and a major resources boom from the mid noughties in the 2000s. A Mincerian labour regression model finds evidence of narrowing wage differentials at the bottom end of the labour market. However, it is also contended that the Lewis model is probably less applicable in Indonesia than in several of the more integrated labour markets of north East Asia. The evidence of a clearly defined turning point is not strong. Economic growth rates have probably been too slow and not employment friendly enough since the AFC to provide sufficient ‘better’ jobs for low productivity workers. One conclusion is that an elastic supply of unskilled labour remains one of Indonesia’s greatest development challenges. Technological up-grading and development of natural resource-based industries may not be enough to raise productivity and wages for most low income workers.