FACTORS LARGELY CONTRIBUTING TO UNEMPLOYMENT IN KENYA

Majority of the unemployed in Kenya are the youth. There account for the biggest percentage of the job seekers in Kenya. This is a major drawback to the economy because the youth are the most productive members of the society. All this labor left out means less production and even more liabilities to the economy. Youth unemployment statistics in Kenya show that 60% of the Kenyan population is under the age of 30.  The Kenyan unemployment rate is approximately 40% as of December 2011 and that an estimated 64% of unemployed Kenyans are youth (Biko, 2012).

Unemployment in Kenya is a growing problem especially among the youth and has been the election agenda for almost every politician in the last few elections and still continues to be. It might not be possible to look at the solution available to the issue of unemployment without looking at the causes of the unemployment as this will give us a peek into what we are dealing with.

The following therefore are the most critical factors resulting to high unemployment rate in Kenya:

High Population Growth

Kenya’s population is growing at a very fast rate compared to the economy. There are more people than the current economy can sustain therefore the large number of unemployed persons in Kenya. Such a high population growth rate is incompatible with the available arable land in the rural areas. Hence people tend to migrate in the urban areas in search of jobs. This aggravates unemployment in the urban areas. This increased population coupled with unemployment really lowers the per capita income of the Kenyan economy.

Global Economic Recession
Recent global economic recessions have reduced the capacity of most economies to reduce unemployment. Kenya is not an exception to this. This increased recession has led to many companies lying off most of their employees to cut down on operational costs. The problem can be solved through greater international co-operation. Kenyan workers face massive lay-offs, no salary increments and a freeze on new jobs as companies struggle to survive in a bad economy. Many companies will pay out smaller dividends to shareholders and are rescheduling their debts to stay afloat. High cost of fuel and transport and poor road network are considered as the major factors responsible for the economic slow down.

Inappropriate Education System
The Kenyan education system has been very good in imparting knowledge to students for a long time. But the problem has come up whereby it has been seen to teach students how to pass exams and not how to become productive later on in their lives. This has had damaging effects on the students after completion of school. These students have few skills that they can apply in the job market and if they have, they are not appropriate for the kind of jobs they are looking for. The education system in Kenya was preparing people for jobs that were not there. The 8-4-4 systemof education is designed to try to overcome this problem. It is intended to make people self reliant. But it has a long way to go before it can really have an impact on the kind of labor it provides to the Kenyan market which of late has been an economy of job seekers.

Seasonal Jobs 

In Kenya, most of the jobs available are usually seasonal, there are there for a specific period of time. Demand for labor in rural areas is mostly seasonal. This is made worse by the general ignorance of the existence of jobs elsewhere as well as by occupational immobility. This creates problems of underemployment and disguised unemployment. Also some of the contractual jobs that come up especially for the manual laborers getting a job after that can take a while due to lack of any professional skills to back them up.

Capacity Under-utilization
Most firms tend to produce below their capacity, thereby not employing as many people as their capable of. This arises due to lack of sufficient demand of their products. It can also be as a result of monopoly practices that limit output. These companies don’t lack the ability to hire manpower but continue under utilization to save on the cost of production therefore increasing the level of unemployment in Kenya.

Imperfections in the Labors Market
There are imperfections in the labor market caused by government and trade union interventions. This has tended to distort the labor market by maintaining minimum wages above the market equilibrium. As such, the wage structure in Kenya has failed to coordinate demand and supply.

Use of inappropriate technology
For developing countries such as Kenya, this is the situation whereby industries continue using relatively capital intensive methods of production instead of labor intensive ones. This is caused by relative factor prices of capital and labor, foreign ownership of firms, etc. This problem can be solved by the creation of incentives to encourage the of labor intensive techniques.

Lack of Co-operand Factors
This is especially so in the case of capital and skilled labor, which are scarce in most developing countries. Such a problem can be solved through increased capital formation and expanded education and training.

Regional disparities in development
The disparities in rural and urban development have tended to encourage migration of labor to towns through what is refereed to as rural-urban migration and thereby a large number of the migrating communities may fall short of jobs as the industries in major towns may not be in a position to accommodate all the population and as a matter of facts, there are minimum opportunities than the rate at which rural-urban migration is rapidly emerging.