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USAID KENYA
Gender equality and empowerment of women is key to accelerating Kenya’s economic growth.
This is how Kenya can create a million jobs per year!
Today is International Labour day. It’s a celebration of labourers and the working classes which is promoted by the international labour movement, and occurs every year on May Day (1 May). They are also the bedrock of Kenya’s economic growth.
Consider this, over 70% of Kenya’s population is less than 30 years of age. Three thousand Kenyans are born every day, over a million every year. And one million young people join the labour force every year.
This means that Kenya needs a million new jobs every year for the next 10 years to keep up with the rapidly-expanding youth bulge. According to the World Bank, only about one in five is likely to find a formal job, while the rest either being unemployed or engaged in some non-wage earning occupation.
Take a look at the landscape of the informal job market in the Kenyan economy – it is rich and vibrant with most youth looking at entrepreneurship as an option to build their careers and their future.
Youth in the current age and economy, especially Kenyans thrive on being their own boss, on being in control of their destiny. A large section of such youth engage in opportunistic trade, picking one skill or the other and starting an enterprise. Lack of adequate technical know-how or business vagaries or under preparedness to face business dynamics forces most of these enterprises to shut down even before they see the second year of operations.READ MORE
