Where Kenyans Are Likely to Land Jobs After Covid-19 - KNBS Report

A photo of jobseekers queuing on Wabera Street, Nairobi, waiting to be interviewed by The Sarova Stanley on May 26, 2018.
Jobseekers queuing on Wabera Street, Nairobi, waiting to be interviewed by The Sarova Stanley on May 26, 2018.
Daily Nation

The Kenya National Bureau Statistics (KNBS) latest data provides an indication into where Kenyans are most likely to find jobs as 2020 advances.

The Economic Survey 2020 released on April 28, 2020, noted that the informal sector was the best bet, having single-handedly created over 90% of all new jobs in 2019 (846,300 jobs).

"The informal sector created 767.9 thousand new jobs, which constituted 90.7% of total new jobs created outside of small-scale agriculture.

"With the shrinking job creation in the formal sector, the majority of the youth who exit from learning institutions and individuals who leave formal employment easily join the informal sector," KNBS informed.

Kenyan students at a Graduation Ceremony
Kenyan students at a Graduation Ceremony
Twitter

According to the report, some of the sectors that contributed the most to employment numbers in the sample period of 2015-2019 included the Manufacturing sector, the Construction sector, and the Transport and Communication industry.

Also found to have contributed the highest were Community, Social and Personal Services as well as the Wholesale, Retail, and Hospitality industries.

The report further informed that the informal sector had registered steady growth in employment over the 2015-2019 period to become the highest employer in the country.

The biggest contributors to employment over the sample period (2015-2019) years were Wholesale, Retail, and Hospitality whose numbers rose from 7.2 million employees in 2015 to 9.0 million in 2019, as well as the manufacturing industry which created 3.04 million jobs in 2019 up from 2.5 million in 2015.

KNBS further informed that the formal sector also recorded marginal improvements in the number of employees absorbed, but it was nowhere close to the informal sector.

In the 2.6%of jobs created by the public sector in 2019, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) took the lion's share by registering a 3.5% increase in the total number of jobs in the sector.

The county governments followed suit and had a growth of 6.4% to bring the total number of individuals so far employed by the counties to 190,000 countrywide.

People advertising their expertise in the streets in the hope of getting clients.
People advertising their expertise in the streets in the hope of getting clients.
Citizen Digital

Employment in corporations controlled by the government declined by 0.4% while that of parastatal bodies declining by 0.5% in 2019.

During the 5 years under review, employment in government ministries and other extra-budgetary institutions also registered a decelerated growth of 0.3% compared to an increase of 4.5% in 2018.