JAKARTA - For about three hours a day recently, Mr Xavier Fabrega, 43, has offered free pilates tutorials online to check in with clients and also to ensure they come back once Jakarta lifts its social distancing restrictions which have kept non-essential businesses like his closed since March.

No longer. Jakarta's government said Wednesday it will extend its stay-at-home order another month.

The Spanish national said he will need to start charging a small fee in part to start to recoup the 800 million rupiah ($74,000) he, his business partner and an investor poured into renovating a studio which opened in February.

"I'm trying to help during this pandemic with something I'm good at," Mr Fabrega said.

"But I need to earn a living and pay bills as well."

Jakarta businesses and residents are rethinking how they make ends meet at a time when officials are intensifying social distancing restrictions and limiting travel.

This week the central government banned all commercial flights and train services to thwart the annual pilgrimage home during Ramadan.

The exodus typically sees more than 30 million people decamp from the big cities and head to their villages, potentially taking with them the deadly coronavirus which causes Covid-19.

With their customers largely confined indoors, businesses have to find creative ways to hawk their goods and stay afloat.

Bistro style eatery chain Union - a fixture at Jakarta's glitzier malls - now offers cocktail delivery in vacuum-sealed pouches.

Customers are not waiting till happy hour on Friday to order favourites such as Negroni, chocolate martinis and cosmopolitans, said Mr Wibi Hananto, spokesman for the brand's owner, The Union Group.

"It's from Wednesday onwards," Mr Wibi said of the demand for the online libations.

More practical is Ms Novi Nooratiqah's idea this month to add kitchen staples like onion, lemon grass and ginger to the family's business of delivering gas canisters and 19-litre bottles of drinking water to apartments in Central Jakarta.

The 23-year-old, who manages the business for her parents, said sales at the family's side-hustle of selling cheap breakfasts of nasi uduk - rice, egg and tempe - for office workers more than halved since the lockdown started.

"This spices up our business," Ms Novi said of the grocery deliveries.

"The epidemic is hurting everyone. It's up to us to find ways to earn a living."

The sudden economic slowdown is wreaking havoc, especially on the country's most vulnerable.

This month, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati slashed the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast from an initial estimate of 5.3 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

The epidemic and the country's economic lockdown will push 1.2 million people below the country's official poverty line, measured at just over 10,000 rupiah a day, according to research this month from the Jakarta think tank, Smeru Research Institute.

To compensate, central and local governments have boosted subsidies on rice, electricity and other essentials, as well as distributed 1 million rupiah for poor households in the capital, which has borne the brunt of the pandemic.

But the assistance amounts to a fraction of regular earnings in a place where the official minimum monthly wage is 4.3 million rupiah.

A freelance labourer at a construction site can earn 200,000 rupiah per day.

The assistance also misses those who do not have a government identity card, which is commonplace for itinerant workers, said poverty advocate Azaz Tigor Nainggolan, whose non-profit, Fakta, offers legal advice to the poor.

"Government assistance is not getting through," Mr Azaz said.

"The urban poor are getting poorer. Some are stealing.

"Some are going back to their villages. There's no work in Jakarta."

Dr Anggiasari Mawardi, 38, owner of apparel maker Anggia Handmade, is fighting to protect her 15 workers from joblessness.

A dental surgeon by profession, Dr Anggiasari started Anggia Handmade in 2011, offering stylish takes on religiously observant apparel such as embroidered head and body coverings for women.

But in late February, Dr Anggia branched into personal protective gear. At first, she made coveralls and reusable nurse uniforms for friends who asked.

Then she put her designs on e-commerce sites like Shoppee, Indonesia's biggest online shopping site. Since March the company has shipped 7,000 personal protective equipment items, charging just enough to cover her costs and pay her staff.

Average prices for disposable scrubs are 65,000 rupiah.

"Times are tough for everyone and I don't want to add to it with higher prices," she explained.

"I just thank God I don't have to lose any of my employees."