If the legion of
jobless youth does not find work the consequences could be dire – from
increased poverty and inequality and economic decline to social and political
instability.
The sponsors of
the National Youth Employment Bill understand the fierce urgency of the
unemployment crisis, especially among youth. The Bill is intended to enhance
access to employment as provided for in article 55(c) of the Constitution. The
authors of the Bill regard youth as a marginalized and minority group under
article 56 of the Constitution and must be provided special opportunities for
access to employment as stipulated in article 56(c).
The Bill seeks
to create the National Youth Employment Authority, which will maintain a
database of unemployed youth and facilitate increased employment of youth in
the public and private sector. Moreover, the Authority will facilitate
counseling of youth to improve absorption in employment as well as providing national
and county governments with policy advise on youth employment. The Authority
will also facilitate internship placement for college students and graduates.
In my view,
maintaining a national database of jobseekers and information on available job
vacancies is critical. This would the first time we have reliable information
on labor market dynamics – who is looking for a job, which sectors are hiring,
skills needed in the labor market and skills job seekers posses.
However, I am
not sure that we need a law and a publicly funded money guzzling bureaucracy to
link youth to internships and jobs and to maintain a labor market database. This
is a function, which can be performed by the Huduma Centres. All one needs is a mobile application to submit their
resume to a database linked to vacancies and they will receive appropriate
notifications.
More
importantly, the reason we have an unemployment crisis is not because we do not
have a National Unemployment Act or Authority. The reason is there are no jobs,
period. The recent impressive GDP growth figures is largely due to expansionary
fiscal policies, which do not create jobs for school leavers and college
graduates. The reason there are no jobs is because Kenya’s export sector has
been sluggish for the past 25 years. Tourism has been buffeted by insecurity
and poaching, especially over the last couple of years.
The reason there
are no jobs is because we have become a warehouse for cheap imports goods from
China. Kenya’s average share of
manufacturing value added in GDP is estimated at 10 percent, unchanged from the
1970’s. Our manufacturing sector employs on 280,000 people. The reason there
are no jobs is because agriculture is comatose, rural productivity has been in
decline for more than four decades.
The
reason there are no jobs is because on average 56 percent of graduates from
East African universities lack basic and technical skills needed for the few
jobs that exist. Moreover, our schools are not places for forging curiosity,
critical thinking, complex reasoning, creativity and innovation.
Even with high unemployment, Kenya faces a
crippling skills shortage. Talk to anybody in construction and they will tell
how difficult it is to find a good electrician, plumber or mason. Those of you who
bother to maintain your cars understand that it take lots of prayers and luck
to find a good technician. It is not surprising that we have Tony Blair leading
Mr. Kenyatta’s Presidential Delivery Unit. And look who is building our roads,
railway, pipeline and ports.
A revitalized smallholder agriculture and
livestock sector can create millions of jobs in production, value addition and
marketing. The boom in the construction sector could create hundreds of
thousands of high quality jobs for engineers, plumbers and masons and project
mangers. The nascent oil, gas and mining sectors will demand thousands of
highly skilled workers: welders; electricians; plant operators; technology
specialists.
We could
learn from India’s network of institutes of technology and Brazil’s focus on
vocational training, which saw spending on vocational training soar from $385
million to $3.8 billion in one decade. We need incentives for “Made in Kenya”
and “Make in Kenya”. We must provide incentives for private sector to investment
in training and hiring.
Most of
all, to create jobs and build the requisite human capital, we must align our
education and training programs and tax incentives with development policy, the
labor market, as well as with the needs of industry, business and the creative
sector.
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