Unemployment in Kenya: Over 1.2 million Kenyans who are jobless have given up on searching for jobs. The Kenyans, who total 1.23 million, have given up following fruitless searches for work. The majority of these are Kenyans aged between 20 and 24 who stand at 363,018 and those aged between 25 to 29 who total 232,146.

This grim statistic is contained in data by the Kenya Bureau of Statistics for the quarter period ended March 2021.  According to Jacqueline Mugo, the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) executive director, these numbers are a reflection of the reality in the economy right now, depending on the sectors.

“So long as businesses are not back to full recovery and people are facing uncertainties and more people are out of work, job seekers realize their chances of getting an opening are very slim,” said Ms. Mugo.

Additional data from KNBS shows that over 700,000 Kenyans lost their jobs in the turbulent year 2020. According to the data that is contained in the Economic Survey 2020 report, the private sector laid off some 206,700 workers while the informal sector lost 543,600 jobs.

This was the first time in 20 years that so many salaried jobs had been lost. The last time a significant number of salaried jobs were lost was in 2001 when some 18,300 salaried workers were fired. In the year 2020, 187,300 formal jobs were lost in the year ended June 2020. In addition, the number of self-employed workers also fell 6,600 to 156,100 in the period through June 2020.

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“Consequently, cessation of movement in and out of some regions, closure of some businesses with high-exposure and reduction of business operating hours due to introduction of curfew, adversely affected employment in several sectors,” the report said.