Unemployment Bites as Thousands Flock Supermarket For Jobs [VIDEO]

Youth queue outside County Hall, Nairobi with their certificates.
Youth queue outside in Nairobi with their certificates, hoping to get jobs.
Daily Nation

Hundreds of job applicants turned up for a job interview at a new Chandarana supermarket that is set to open in Kakamega. 

An advert that was making rounds on social media on Thursday indicated that the supermarket chain was holding interviews today with messages in many groups urging job seekers to show up on Friday 28, 2020 at 9:00 Am.

This incident where hundreds of Kenyan youth have shown up for a job interview has exposed the alarmingly high level of unemployment in the country.

Job Vacancy advert
Chandarana Supermarket vacancy advert, Kakamega on February 27, 2020.
Twitter

A  video taken at the former Nakummat building on the interview day went viral on social media showing a huge crowd of young people waiting to be interviewed.

Reports indicate that the supermarket chain had only advertised for fifteen positions but hundreds of people turned up to try their luck. Many of the applicants showed up as early as 7 am in the morning. 

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"Joblessness in Kenya is a national disaster. This is painful guys. To think about the number of people who have graduated from various universities hurts more," an aspirant politician captioned the photo on Twitter.

The high unemployment rates in Kenya are the highest in our history. This is disturbing! It is a very Sad state of affairs. (Video Country)

The Economic Survey released in April this year showed that Kenya's economy created 840,000 new jobs in 2018, 83.6 percent (762,000) of them being in the informal sector.

The report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) revealed that employment in the public sector went up to 83,300 people in 2018 to 84,200 in 2019.

On the other hand, the private sector, which accounted for 69.5 percent of the total employment grew by three percent in 2018.