- In 2013, outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta and the President-Elect William Ruto promised one million jobs per year
- Before their bromance turned south, millions of Kenyan graduates were still yawning, but bitterly, waiting Uhuruto govt to hire them
- If the said promises were met, today over ten million youths would have something to put on their table unlike the graph
Kenya is one of the country’s in East Africa that has been grappling with the absorption rate for labour force against high number of graduates posted annually
With the population of 47 million people according to the latest statistics from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics KNBS (2019) a sizeable or paltry number of about 11% are officially employed
Last two weeks the citizen by investment posted shocking findings that are anything to go by the high number of kenyan graduates either unclogging streets or in informal employment such as government sponsored programmes tagged (kazi mtaani) which has minimally addressed the gap
According to Citizen by Investment’s data is that, Kenya has 8,500 high net worth individuals, translating to 0.0180 percent those who have over $1 million (Sh118.2 million)
The data showed there are, 340 Kenyan multimillionaires, those who have over $10 million (Sh1 billion), and 15 multimillionaire who have over $100 million (Sh11.8 billion).
Despite our country having no dollar billionaire as it is seen in Morocco which has three, South Africa five, Egypt seven, and Nigeria four. It showed the level of poverty is very high compared to rich class
The other findings from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the first quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate stood at 63.9 percent for those between the ages fifteen to twenty four and 42.1 percent between the ages of 25-34 years
Well, the current official rate nationally stands at 34.5 percent
My research delves into the main causes of unemployment rate and what are some of the mitigating factors that kenya can put in place to address the said shortcomings
One of the grey area that should be closed by the system and the society is rampant corruption, right left centre, that has made few individuals become overnight billionaires and others millionaires
Corruption can be inform of an individual or some few individuals dishonestly acquiring public coffers like financial resources to a tune of thousands, hundred thousands, millions or billions of shillings
This vise and mischievous acts has resulted to cripple or rendering the affected entity dysfunctional and unable to hire other employees
A good example is in the Ministry of Health where the department mandated to supply medicines and medical related materials called Kenya Medical Suppliers Authority (Kemsa) few individuals stole over Sh 7 billions made to supply Covid-19 equipments to health centres
And some of equipments donated by donor community would be diverted to other neighbouring countries, this would pose bigger challenge in the growth of the sector
It would mean the government through the above mentioned Ministry will look for another alternative to pump other cash, it directly affected some of health officials working without personal protective equipments which had been provided for hence dying in line of duty
It will again have negative impact in the society because the Ministry couldn’t be in a position to recruit thousands of trained health personnels scattered across the country owing to the fact that no funds to sustain their salaries
Another example just to mention a few is in the Kenya Ports Authority where the CEO Mr Daniel Manduku stole over Sh 1.2 billion making the entity unable to operationalize and hire staffs, the few workers living with meagre salaries hence downing their tools
Kenya has had corruption after corruption, we also witness a big scandals and series of deliberate or conspired move in the National carrier Kenya Airways where billions of shillings are embezzled annually by few individuals rendering the entity into the knees, without work force
We were also treated with another bizarre when we also had series one and two of another much publicised scandal in the state-owned National Youth Service.
All these calls for government’s bailouts or interventions hence mismatching the drive to hire graduates, with the number of fresh graduates increasing yearly owing to increase of population
Unemployment in Kenya is also contributed by unrecognition of some academic qualifications where government and other employers would trash some of disciplines acquired from the universities and colleges and end up hiring other people who can work all duties without job description
It is posting wreckage in the families owing to the fact that they spend their little earned money to educate their child or children, only later to become a houseboy or house-girl with all academic papers acquired
Government of Kenya has had an appetite of contracting foreigners to perform functions which would be done by Kenyan professionals hence denying their own human capital an opportunity to drive the economy further by adding value addition to the society
Another cause of joblessness is brought up by poor industrial relationships and failure to absorb the related fields of job market and instead leave without or stay with few staffs earning fat salaries
A good example is when the government has introduced public internship programme under the public service commission, most of graduates interned in different government agencies are assertive with employability skills but instead of them being absorbed after completion of one year internship period, they are let away to start hustling again
According to Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) which is an international measure of acute multidimensional poverty covering over 100 developing countries.
Kenya is regarded as a lower middle income economy but 16.1% of her population lives below the poverty line in a trajectory of financial years 2023 to 2024 which is caused by the economic inequality mentioned there above unless it’s revised
The research is exclusively work of the author Aron Ndonyi Kinyamasyo which he presented to the Ministry of ICT on July,2022. Therefore, no one should whatsoever infringe this works without consent from the owner