Kenya: The Youth unemployment “a Sociodemographic disaster” and its effects on National security!

Article by: Hon Stephen N. Kinuthia

Director at Tourism Finance Corporation (TFC)

Date : 25th October 2019

Kenya at a Glance

Kenya is a country of many contrasts, from its landscape to demographics, and more so it’s social and economic inequalities. Access to basic quality services such as health care, education, clean water and sanitation, is often a luxury for many people. Large segments of the population, including the burgeoning urban poor, are highly vulnerable to climatic, economic and social shocks.

Kenya economic opportunities driven by a high growth rate must outpace the increase in population currently estimated at around 2.9%. Development literature tells us that that to bend the curve of poverty you need growth of above 7% sustained over several years.

Then there is a labour markets dimension. The rate at which young people find jobs depends on how prepared the labour market is to receive them, and how ready they are for the labour market. Even with high primary school enrolment with an equal number of girls and boys starting school, today primary school completion can no longer be our goal. In Kenya, out of every 100 students who start primary school, only 68 transitions to secondary school; and just 6 of this group go to universities or tertiary institutions to learn the skills required to give the country an edge in an increasingly competitive world.

Experience worldwide has shown that no nation has achieved a technological and socio-political advance where less than 15% of its qualified young citizens have access to tertiary education. The USA has achieved over 80% access while in Europe the average is 35%. In emerging economies like South Africa and Brazil - which Kenya seeks to emulate - the percentage of access to tertiary education is 18% and 25% respectively.

It is not surprising to find, therefore, that potential employers in Kenya as well as elsewhere say that our institutions aren’t graduating people with the skills they need to enhance their success. This means there is need to fundamentally address the skills gap, as well as the skill mismatch. The abilities of job-seekers are falling short of the ambitions of industry.

This Africa-wide problem is also reflected in Kenya. In fact, Kenya’s youth unemployment situation is particularly serious. For instance, in the period 1998-2005, aggregate unemployment fell from 15% to 12.5%, but the share of the youth in unemployment rose from 60% to 72 %. And the rate of joblessness is almost 40% of youth, or an estimated 5.2 million young adults. This is double the adult average of 21 percent.

Kenya’s vision 2030 sets an ambitious target to become a middle income country by 2030. This goal not only requires uninterrupted growth of 10% per year, but will also demand citizens with globally-competitive skills.

In 2010, Kenya enacted a new Constitution that specifically addresses longstanding historical, geographic, demographic and human rights violations that have hindered progressive development. Under the new dispensation, power was devolved?from the National Government to 47 newly decentralized counties. Three years later Kenyans conducted fairly peaceful elections to vote in the National and County Government with expectations for equitable resource allocation and accountable service delivery.

On another front, Kenya continues to face humanitarian challenges, particularly the presence of over 500,000 refugees from Somalia and 30,000 new arrivals from South Sudan.?In June 2011, Kenya faced formidable hurdles with the Horn of Africa drought that left 3.75 million Kenyans and 150,000 refugees mostly from Somalia, in need of humanitarian assistance. International organizations and other partners responded effectively to this emergency bringing the humanitarian crisis largely under control. However, significant challenges still remain as a result of the 2011 refugee influx, increasing insecurity and ongoing food insecurity.

Youth unemployment is a tragedy

Politicians have started to beat the drums of the 2022 elections, the BBI debate but there has been too little debate on the policies that those politicians are offering the Youth in terms of creation of employment.?Two years after last $1 billon repeated election - Africa’s most expensive election on a cost-per-voter basis; and three years to next general elections, multiple crises and challenges Kenyans and especially the Youth should engage politicians on how they intend to improve the quality of life and expand the opportunities of all Kenyans, especially the 42% of the population of 46 million, who live below the poverty line.

The labour market is letting young Kenyans’ down. Youth unemployment is a tragedy on a vast scale and an equally immense waste of Kenya’s resources. Unemployment is the principal driver of inequality and the social malaise stoked by exclusion is a deep and growing threat to our prosperity and to democracy itself.

It’s a crisis with deep roots. For over 20 years, the economy has failed to generate enough jobs for new entrants into the labour market, a trend that has been exacerbated by mega corruption, numerous policy decisions that have increased taxes and risks for firms and investors.?

Career Desires and Employment

The desire to work is defined as the enthusiasm or eagerness to work and one’s sense of pride and self-worth derived from working. Strong desire to work is a positive reference to potential employment longevity. It’s an indication of someone who tends to focus their energy on their work and to define themselves by the work they do. One’s desire to work speaks broadly to one’s own expected level of engagement and productivity.

The majority of us want to live comfortably, be successful and live our own dreams. However, there are several external factors that affect the youth today such as poverty, crime, lack of educational opportunities, unemployment, one's own mind-set and the list goes on.

Employment provides individuals with income and opportunities for skills development, in addition to providing access to professional and social networks. A job grants important structure, stability and a certain predictability to life. For young people transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood, work often represents a prerequisite to attain adult roles. Without gainful employment, milestones such as graduating from school, starting a family and establishing an independent household may prove difficult or impossible.

A decent and productive job not only contributes to attaining fundamental individual and family well-being, but also spills over, contributing to society's broader objectives, such as poverty reduction, economy-wide productivity growth and social cohesion.

Idle hands are the devil's tools; idle mind is a waste of time...

Kenya Government needs to wake up to “the ticking time-bomb” of youth unemployment in the country and treat the issue as seriously as sociodemographic disasters and comprehensive efforts to eradicate the menace.

The problem of chronic youth unemployment is very evident in Kenya. Every year thousands of graduates are turn out for whom there are no jobs. Kenyan streets are littered with youth hawkers, matatu touts, car washers, kangeta and miraa (khats) consumers, others wasted in alcohol and other drug addiction etc… who ordinarily would have found gainful employment in some enterprise. The self-employed are in quandary as scant infrastructure makes it impossible for them to ply their trade.

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The large number of youths who are unemployed is capable of undermining democratic practice as they constitute a serious threat if engaged by the political class for clandestine activities. The unemployed youths are steadily becoming political thugs and blood-thirsty hoodlums at the disposal of the politicians. The point here is that when large numbers of youths are unemployed their quest to survive may make them to become willing tools in the hands of eccentric and disgruntled politicians who may want to use them for anti-social and clandestine political activities.

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The utilization and manipulation of mostly unemployed and ignorant youths to perpetuate post elections violence experienced between December?2007 and March?2008 was surprising, especially because Kenyan democracy was viewed as the most successful in the region at that time, particularly after the 2002 political transition between President Moi and Kibaki. The 2007 election was adjudged to be most violent in Kenya history, with two months of bloodshed that left over 1,000 dead and up to 500,000 internally displaced persons in a country, it’s a clear indication of an attempt to use this category of youths to bring democracy to a brink and destabilize the nation.

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The unemployed youths are idle hands and minds often recruited by the politicians for political thuggery to harass and intimidate political opponents, used as militants “political supporters” to attack individuals, maim the opponents, vandalize and destroy lives and property during election and after – this have escalated to premise of county assemblies today. In addition, there has been increase in the involvement of youths in various anti-social activities and offences as a result of unemployment. Such offences include: alcoholism, narcotic drugs and substance abuse; criminal activities such as violent crime, murder, abduction, stealing, unlawful possession of arms, armed robbery and carjacking, sex offences, terror attacks and so on. All these actions are due to the “laissez-faire approach”, a wait and see attitude and part of clandestine political activities which are inimical to the growth, sustenance and stability of peace and democracy in Kenya.

It worth noting that, Youth unemployment and underemployment are among the main barriers to development in Kenya and most African countries. Not only does the exclusion of young people from the labour force perpetuate generational cycles of poverty, it also breaks down social cohesion and can be associated with higher levels of crime and violence among idle youth. Undeniably, women and girls carry a greater burden in the society of poorly or unpaid domestic and care work than men, limiting their education and employment opportunities.

The Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion

In the last 20 years, Youth unemployment has skyrocketed in Kenya “serious threat to social cohesion” and rapidly becoming one of the major threats to its national security. The major reasons for unemployment is that the growth of education has far outstripped the growth of the economy in which the supply of jobs cannot meet the demand of the graduates moving out of the university and tertiary institution.

The youth are a vulnerable group in the labour market, and their chances of employment are susceptible to conjunctures to a larger degree than those of their adult counterparts. They are also more vulnerable to income poverty (Fahmy, 2014).

According to World Bank researchers; there is no specific link between unemployment and violence or crime, but unemployed youth are disproportionately more likely to commit crimes when a number of other factors, such as weak support networks, are also present. The World Bank warned Kenya against high unemployment among its youth and misplaced focus on education spending, which could turn the nation’s demographic dividend into a demographic disaster. Even where violence is not yet a concern, high rates of disengagement among the youth can have a lasting, “scarring” impact on their future economic prospects and ultimately limit the productive potential of a country as a whole

Impact of high educated youth unemployment

The high incidence of educated youth unemployment has much wider implications for the future of the country.

1)???The missing workers will certainly bring down the actual GDP from the potential and create a drag on the rate of capital formation because of high proportion of unproductive population. These twin effects of sub-optimal production and lower savings rate and capital formation will undermine the growth performance and limit scope for future employment expansion. A vicious cycle would emerge where jobless growth will halt growth itself and hence precipitate joblessness further. It is all the more precarious when it comes from the educated/trained/skilled section of the youth workforce.

2)??Long term unemployment of the youth actually means that the fresh entrants to the workforce are without any job. This is a sure way of deskilling the trained youth whereby the young men and women tend to forget whatsoever they had learnt in the preceding years due to long non-application of knowledge. As a result, when some of them do find a job after a long wait at last, they tend to be low productive workers. Such a long wait at the beginning of their prospective working life creates the discouraged worker effect whereby many of them, especially young women, withdraw themselves from the labour force.

3)??Education in Kenya is highly subsidised and making of a graduate or post-graduate entails substantial cost to the State & society. Educated youth unemployment means a loss to the national exchequer and in a capital scarce developing country where the state does not have adequate money to spend on basic needs and infrastructure, such a loss is quite unacceptable.

4)??Huge educated youth unemployment is a major threat to social stability and internal security. Since education/training involves substantial cost to the parents and individuals (in spite of huge subsidies by the government), being unemployed is a type of financial loss to these individuals. Also, investments in education are made by parents and individuals with the expectation of getting returns as the theories of human capital formation. Therefore, when these young people come out of the nimbus portals of educational institutions and find themselves unwanted in the job market; leave aside being wooed, a sense of betrayal, being cheated and exploited creeps in, which quickly turns to frustration and despair. These young adults are breeding grounds of social and political unrest and very frequently are soft targets of criminal gangs and extremist groups for utilising as pawns in subversive activities. Educated unemployment among youth is therefore the surest way to socioeconomic disaster.

Breaking the cycle of youth unemployment

Although youth unemployment is often considered as a social problem, but it is also an industrial sociology issue especially as it relates to the supply of, and the demand for labour. Therefore, industrial sociology is not only concerned with what goes on in an industrial setting, but also how the external socio-economic and political environment shape and reshape behaviour and conduct of workers both within and outside their places of work on one hand, and on the other, how industries evaluate and react to external environment as either to continue to operate in such an environment or to relocate to a more favourable one. For instance, no matter the relative economic benefits or gains workers may be enjoying or are making in their places of work, if the labour market is saturated thus giving rise to youth unemployment, this will make socio-economic and political environment hostile, unstable, insecure, unsafe and rancorous, and such benefits or gains enjoyed by the workers will be eroded.

As regards the concept of unemployment, there seems to be a consensus on the definition of unemployment. Simply put, unemployment describes the condition of people who are without jobs. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines the unemployed as numbers of the economically active population who are without work but available for and seeking work, including people who have lost their jobs and those who have voluntarily left work (World Bank, 1998).

Youth unemployment, therefore, could be described as the conglomerate of youths with diverse background, willing and able to work, but cannot find any. When the supply of labour outstrips the demand for labour, it causes joblessness and unemployment. Given the lack of sufficient employment opportunities in the formal sector, young people may be compelled to engage in casual work and other unorthodox livelihood sources, thus leading to underemployment. (Echebiri, 2005; Gibb & George, 1990; Onah, 2001).

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Here are the 10 key strategies to reduce youth unemployment:

1.????Encourage Entrepreneurship: it’s no secret that entrepreneurs are pivotal to creating wealth and driving economic growth, innovation and employment.

2.???Reassessing the Value of Unpaid Internships: While internships can help lay the foundation for a career, unpaid placements can also leave interns embittered towards the concept of work. Interns must receive high standards of training and supervision, and organisations should offer some form of minimal pay to engage young adults.

3.???Re-evaluating the distribution of welfare: Care must be taken to avoid promotion of welfare as a viable alternative to work. Youth allowances can set a dangerous precedent by encouraging the view that welfare is a necessity to fund their lifestyle. There needs to be a review of the length of time that young job seekers can claim unemployment benefits, or at least ensure that they are exploring all avenues for work.

4.???All secondary schools should have active partnerships with employers: By developing partnerships between schools and employers, schools will be able to align their curriculum and the skills of students with employer needs.

5.???Earlier Career Guidance: Career advisers at schools should be meeting students earlier on in their schooling to tap into their skills and help steer them on a career path. Students need to be provided with a sense of direction regarding career pathways and be made aware of the vast opportunities out there for them.

6.???A new standard for work experience: There needs to be an increase in work experience opportunities for students across a variety of industries. Students should engage in a number of different workplace environments to get a real feel of what the workforce will be like. This will broaden their minds on the opportunities available and help provide them with a well-rounded sense of direction for their career path.

7.???Modernising apprenticeships: It’s important that there is a continued increase in new and modern apprenticeship opportunities, particularly for those furthest from the labour market. As part of the process for developing a new skilled workforce in Kenya, there needs to be an emphasis on developing the skills and knowledge of young Kenyans.

8.???Providing fair opportunities for disadvantaged youth: There’s need to allocate funds for environmental program (Blue economy, Environment conservation, Ecosystem protection etc...) to create new high quality jobs and training opportunities for youth in disadvantaged areas.

9.???Increased uptake of work-related learning and qualifications in the senior phase of school: Even before entering an apprenticeship, schools need to take responsibility for developing the skills students need to enter the workforce. It’s all about making the transition of the world of school to the world of work easier.

10.?A national levy scheme for skill shortage areas: Like other developing nations, Kenya should be shifting towards a levy scheme to recruit and train young people in skills shortage areas. The manufacture, infrastructure and construction industry is one area which has started seeing success, achieving consistent, ongoing investment in training young entrants and reaping the benefits of having a consistently skilled workforce.

Building skills to reduce unemployment

To help combat unemployment, more career based Internships could be implemented. This would not only provide an opportunity for youth but also necessary work experience would be earned. Apprenticeship - career training programs could be implemented as well. Moreover, these internships programs give employers an opportunity to scout future employees.

In addition, mentorships and career counselling could help motivate and change certain mind-sets within the Kenyan youth. We as human-beings can help and encourage one another to excel through these programmes.

Without change, the country cannot move forward. Firstly, policies to assist youth employment will need to be altered or rather changed because high youth unemployment rates are a growing issue within the 47 counties. Policies could include a curriculum of how to be in the workforce based on the subject taught could be implemented. Also, accessibility in post-primary training institutions (village polytechnic) – governments could pay tuition fees in order to help out its citizens. By doing this, persons become more qualified and marketable in a country.

Businesses and employers could provide solutions by linking with schools - youth to develop skills. Entrepreneurs could come during certain periods as guest lecturers to help educate the youth. They could provide various exercises such as personality tests, mock work interviews, maintaining certain composure due to specific situations at work, etc. Strengthening the link between the education system and the labour market is essential because the youth would be better equipped for the workforce. They suggested ideas such as improved access to vocational training, on-the-job training programmes, soft skills training, combination of in-classroom and workplace training and better apprenticeships.

Sports for Health and Development

Young people in Kenya today live in complex and challenging times. Alcohol and drug abuse is one of the biggest problems confronting Kenya, especially among the youth.?Incidents of?drug?and?alcohol?abuse?and?related?anti-social?behaviour?have tremendously?increased?in?recent?years.?This?has resultantly become?a matter?of?concern?to?the government,?parents,?teachers, non-governmental?organizations?and?all?other?relevant agencies.

Most youths are ready to defy some of the challenges prevailing in the World today such as unemployment and economic hardship, which has reduced them to the level of desperation. Most of them have given up hopes and have buried their talents and indulge in activities such as drug abuse, prostitution, gansterism and banditry. It can therefore not be argued that idleness breeds crime and other numerous malpractices that can only lead to the destruction of individuals and their communities.

In a Kenyan context, there are numerous challenges still predominant in most of its urban townships and rural areas. This is because the desire and zeal to conquer and be number one has unfortunately not been matched with opportunities and facilities to nurture their skills and talents. It is in this context that the government needs to create Sports Academies in in order to pursue its keenness to transform the lives of the budding Kenyan talents.?

The future of every country and its related society lies in the youthful population. Investing in youths entails building a solid foundation for future leaders by maximizing their potentials.?We therefore believe that it is an urgent need to build an academy in every county that shall provide the training ground for young sport men and women that shall also serve as a nursery for our national teams; and to offers an opportunity for maximal development of talent in youth through training and nurturing of their talents thus giving them a chance of making it in life through sports.

Students need credit

Youth unemployment isn't a one-dimensional problem. We have to look at both the human capital dimension - what young people bring to their work, their abilities, and so on, as well the business environment that's conducive to productive work or not, conducive to competitive firms starting up or not.

But it is not enough for governments and the private sector to create more jobs geared towards young people - whether in agriculture, manufacturing or the natural resource industries. Access to quality education also needs to improve, alongside a focus on skills-building with apprenticeships and internship opportunities.

Youth also need more access to credit. If we look at the issue of financial inclusion, there are many young workers operating their own business, but access to credit, to be able to purchase inputs, is lacking, so we need reforms to enable youth to access financial markets.

The government, public and private businesses and other stakeholders need to do all they can to avoid a lost generation which will be an economic and social disaster.

Give youth a chance

Young people are being excluded from economic life by a combination of joblessness and barriers to the creation of start-ups. Unleashing the energy, entrepreneurial spirit and technological genius of the young is not just a moral imperative, but an economic necessity. It’s a disaster in the making, not just for the individuals affected, but for society in general. This is the hard vision of the future facing young people today.

The best way to get more employment is for the economy to grow. And the best way to achieve that is to ensure that the environment is conducive to doing business. That, in turn will facilitate new business formation and growth, generating additional jobs.

Businesses producing goods and services for customers who are willing to pay for them are by far the most likely drivers of employment growth at the scale needed by our labour market. There is no conceivable set of social projects and initiatives that would achieve this goal more effectively and sustainably.

Better training is important but skill and training interventions will have a limited impact in the absence of reforms to make the economy more dynamic and flexible. They will also do little for the employability of the millions of people who have exited the education system. Many put their hopes into youth entrepreneurship programmes. Good intentions notwithstanding, the hard reality is that unemployed young people are least able to establish successful firms. Start-ups have very high failure rates and the best training for entrepreneurship is a job.

The bottom line is that by having a full assessment of internships, education and welfare, the government may well be able to reduce Kenya’s high levels of youth unemployment and identify the key areas for reform. Otherwise, an entire generation may be lost to a lack of direct action.?

Summary conclusion and Solutions to unemployment in Kenya

Youth unemployment is a menace in Kenya and constitutes a real danger and a threat to Kenya’s Cohesion and Peace stability. To overcome the crisis, the government must be effective in performing their duties. A socio-economic environment should be created. This is because these youth could be manipulated to undermine the stability of Kenya’s democracy at any point in time.

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Against this background:

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-??????there’s the needs to foresee looming crisis and to make all possible actions to prevent it;

-??????there’s the need by government at all levels and other stakeholders to embark on massive job creation to take these youths off the urban streets, rural shopping centres, drugs and illicit brew dens;

-??????It is also very important to understand the scope and types of unemployment in Kenya.

Granted, there may not be a quick fix to this problem, but all the stakeholders must as a matter of fact do something urgently.

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Some of the suggested ways of tackling this problem may include but not limited the following;

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-??????First, government must play its constitutional role by creating enabling socio-economic and political environment including the provision of infrastructure to make industrial climate investment friendly. Agriculture and value addition are one of the major sectors and the government has to do everything possible to attract private investors. This will encourage investors to invest and thereby create jobs in order to absorb the unemployed youths. Thus, creating new job opportunities.

Improvement of energy supply and transport system will cut the high cost of production. So, there will be no need to cut jobs.

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-??????Second, there’s the need to reinvigorate and overhaul the entire educational system at all levels to create room for entrepreneurial education in order to produce skilled graduates, innovators, and entrepreneurs. ?Practice and research should be priority, not just the theoretical learning. Also, the government needs to create schools, good recreation amenities, and infrastructure and job opportunities in rural areas. This will cut the level of migration to cities and urban towns, thus reducing high population and unemployment in the cities and towns.

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-??????Third, government must not relent in the crusade against all forms of corruption and graft in public and private lives in Kenya. As evident, most scholars and institutions have identified Kenya as amongst the list of most corrupt countries in the world. This posture does not give Kenya a good image at all. In fact, scholars often wondered why a country as remarkable and prosperous as Kenya with enormous human “educated populous” and natural resources has remained perpetually poor and underdeveloped. The main factor that has been identified to have contributed largely to this is massive looting of public treasury at all levels of governments by the past and present leaders. Therefore government must support the various anti-corruption agencies and bodies to carry out their mandates successful so that funds meant to development projects utilized appropriately. This will lead to boost the investors’ confidence and promote job creation that will absorb most unemployed youths in Kenya.

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-??????Fourth, Kenyans also have to play their part in reducing the level of unemployment in the country. We need to change our attitude and mind-set to the future of the country during and after the election periods. We need to understand our responsibility as a people. We should vote for people with vision, credibility, integrity, answers and readiness to work. This will determine the conditions of life in the country.

-??????Fifth, democracy is a journey not a destination. For Kenya, it is a learning process. As a matter of fact it may not be a perfect system of government, but it has several advantages over other systems. People including the Kenyan youths must feel the positive impact of democracy in their lives. The situation whereby only a few privileged persons in positions of authority benefit from this system of government and the expense of the impoverished masses portends a great and real danger that may incur the wrath of the unemployed youths in Kenya if not addressed urgently.

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Finally, the government should create Future Skills Centres (FSC), a forward-thinking research centre with a focus on how to best prepare Kenya’s today for workforce opportunities of the future. Internship programmes - matching employers and students with the right experiential learning opportunities. This will make it easier for businesses to access the future skills needed to be competitive and grow Kenya’s economy.

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In the same line, create Job Centres across the 47 counties to help Job seekers of all ages and life stages connect to Business and meaningful employment opportunities. This will help maximize the employer's recruitment budget and optimize the job seeker's searches through superior products and excellent customer service etc.…

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Roosevelt equated a life of ignoble ease to that of “peace that springs merely from the lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things”.

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Our future is in our hands!

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