Jobless youth giving up on finding work – ILO

Youths whose hopes of getting a job in the formal market do not look good at all according the International Labour Organisation (ILO), many of them, frustrated and dejected, have stopped looking for work altogether. PHOTO/FILE 

In Summary

• Statistics released by the ILO last month show that the inactivity rate for young people reached 60.5 per cent in 2012 – an increase of five percentage points since 2000.
• The statistics show that very few youths are entering the job market because even where there are available opportunities, it is the older adults who are disproportionately benefiting from the share of the jobs created, compounding the already complicated perennial problem of youth unemployment.
• In 2011, only one quarter of the population aged 15 to 34 in Kenya believed it was a good time to find a job.
• While the government has implemented a series of programmes, such as the Kenya Youth Empowerment Project to address the employment challenges confronting young people, ILO is of the view that such initiatives have been too general to deal with the problem sustainably.

By PAULINE KAIRU
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Owen Anyasi is a graduate of IT.

He previously had dreams of working in a company as a systems developer, designer or network administrator. Instead, he works in a tiny stall embellished with posters of the latest movies.

The stall is on a narrow street connecting to Moi Avenue in Nairobi. He sits there all day
 downloading and burning movies off the Internet, and offers them for sale to clients looking for cheap films for home entertainment. His is an outfit that bootlegs movies and music.

This 23-year-old graduated a year ago. A friend he went to school with, he says, is doing the same business in another part of the city. It is about survival, he declares.

Owen and his friend are among a statistic of youths whose hopes of getting a job in the formal market do not look good at all. And sadly according the International Labour Organisation (ILO), many of them, frustrated and dejected, have stopped looking for work altogether.

Statistics released by the ILO last month show that the inactivity rate for young people reached 60.5 per cent in 2012 – an increase of five percentage points since 2000.

PESSIMISTIC OUTLOOK

The statistics show that very few youths are entering the job market because even where there are available opportunities, it is the older adults who are disproportionately benefiting from the share of the jobs created, compounding the already complicated perennial problem of youth unemployment.

As such, the youth employment rate in Kenya, at 32.8 per cent, is less than half the adult employment rate and one of the lowest in the region.

This, says ILO, is part of the reason many educated young people have stopped applying for jobs. They are increasingly pessimistic about their employment prospects. Like Owen and his friend, they are the ones starting small-time businesses with little chance for growth.

The report confirms that majority of jobs created in Kenya have been through informal sector enterprises.

In the past decade alone, states ILO, non-agricultural informal-sector employment rose by approximately 5.1 million or 7.2 per cent per year, far outstripping the growth in formal waged employment. As a result, employment in the informal-sector constituted 64 per cent of total employment in 2011, and 85 per cent when small-scale agricultural activities are considered.

Moreover, the vast majority of formal jobs in Kenya have been casual in nature. Between 2003 and 2011, regular employment grew by 7 per cent compared to 87 per cent growth in casual employment.

In 2011, only one quarter of the population aged 15 to 34 in Kenya believed it was a good time to find a job.

Creation of adequate, productive and sustainable jobs to absorb the growing labour force has remained a major policy challenge for the Kenya government since independence.

“It is important to note that considerable efforts have been put by the government in recent years to support the labour market, and especially the youth. However, a stronger link between growth, employment and equity would be necessary to boost job-rich growth and ensure that all Kenyans benefit equally from the country’s prosperity,” says Verónica Escudero, ILO economist and one of the authors of the report.

“Effective social dialogue between the government, employers and workers can not only lead to the best possible policies but also ensure that they are implemented effectively,” advises Elva López Mourelo, co-author of the report.

Between 1991 and 2003, the employment rate in Kenya fell by over seven per cent from 67 per cent to 59.7 per cent. Even during the most recent period of strong and persistent economic growth, employment growth only kept pace with the working-age population.

Accordingly in 2012, the employment rates, at just over 60 per cent, remained well below the levels achieved in the 1990s and considerably lower than the average for sub-Saharan Africa (65.1 per cent).

COMPLEX PROBLEM

While the government has implemented a series of programmes, such as the Kenya Youth Empowerment Project to address the employment challenges confronting young people, ILO is of the view that such initiatives have been too general to deal with the problem sustainably.

The global labour organisation recommends that the government re-orients the suite of existing programmes with a view to better aligning them with youth employment challenges.

Economist Kwame Owino, who is the CEO of the Institute of Economic Affairs, wants it known though that unemployment is not just a problem for the youth. He argues that growth in jobs, especially the formal sector, has been very poor relative to the numbers that are turning to the job market.

“There are many people who are not youths and are not in retirement age, but they too cannot find employment,” he points out. He would rather see the matter tackled as a general unemployment problem.

Nonetheless, he admits that the youth are the majority of the unemployed, given the countries demographics, where 70-80 per cent of those searching for jobs are below 35 years.

He warns though that the question of youth unemployment is so complex with multiple subsets that require separate resolutions.

For instance, he explains, the reason some young people don’t have jobs and won’t find decent employment is either because they did not attain the desired education or there has been a mismatch between the levels and areas of their training in relation to job market needs.

To him, therefore, unemployment is a structural problem that needs multi-sectorial interventions, including re-orientation and implementation of education and training, to put them in synch with industry needs.  

But most importantly, he advises, the government needs to move away from treating the symptoms of unemployment to dealing with the causes of the problem.

This makes it imperative that the employment challenge facing the country is broken down into its main causes and specific strategies designed and implemented to deal with each type of unemployment. This is to ensure proper and effective policy targeting, he explains.

“The government is trying so hard to deal with the supply side and not the demand side of the problem, which is the growth of employers like manufacturing plants, and direct investment into production or business and firms that will create demand for workers,” he argues.