Kenya is experiencing it’s highest level of unemployment ever. This has contributed to high cost of living due to lack of purchase power by the people. But how did we get here. Who will save these youths. How will we create jobs for them?
Kenya is being failed by our own leaders. They rather give out tokens and promote mediocrity instead of empowering the youth.
Today, a company will request for application for 200 vacant positions and they’ll receive 10,000 interested youths. A company calls for interviews and the number of people that show up overwhelms the management and they are forced to call off the whole process. This is due to overflow that even their premises can’t hold making it hard to conduct interviews.
How do we beat this?
Support sports and talents. Almost half of these youths are empowered naturally with talents. Supporting sports through sports ministry will accomodate more youths who will build their careers through sports. They can also partner with overseas sports associations to export talent as a way of beating unemployment.
Reducing taxation. Taxes has been a huge hindrance for youths who want to explore self employment through business. By reducing taxation, like business permits and import duties, more youths will take on business instead of scrambling for few available jobs.
Creating more industries instead of churches can help too. This will help tap in more youths who will provide skills and services to these industries. More industries mean more employment opportunities and this will highly reduce unemployment.
Creating a conducive environment for business wille encourage more youths to venture into it. Thr other day, we saw Nairobi County harassing smokie vendors. Smokie Vendors Compensated After Harassment By “Kanjo”. This shouldn’t be the way to go. Both county and national government should create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.
Government should also encourage more investors into the country. Investors invest in various sectors. These sectors will demand labour and thatshow youths get jobs. The more investors come in, the more sectors thrive, the more youths get jobs.
Encourage hands on skills sectors like the Jua Kali sector by providing ready markets for their production. This will encourage more artisan courses in schools to counter the demand because of the ready markets. More youths will take on the blue collar jobs instead of running to all white collar jobs.
Every year, universities release students to the job market. These graduates find their predecessors still unemployed and struggling. This now leaves them with luck to try instead of being assured of jobs immediately after campus. This is unfortunate and something must be done to counter the problem. We have an unemployment crisis that needs to be addressed as soon as possible.