The official data released by the government Thursday reveals that the economy grew by 6.3 percent in 2018, helped by an impressive growth in agriculture, manufacturing and transport.
This is a commendable rebound from the 4.7 percent recorded in 2017, which was the slowest growth in five years and that came right after a prolonged and highly-contested electioneering period that was made worse by drought.
While the data released yesterday by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics paints a rosy overall picture, one worrying statistic stands out from the rest: the number of formal jobs generated fell to a six-year low of only 78,4000 in 2018.
The official data released by the government Thursday reveals that the economy grew by 6.3 percent in 2018, helped by an impressive growth in agriculture, manufacturing and transport.
This is a commendable rebound from the 4.7 percent recorded in 2017, which was the slowest growth in five years and that came right after a prolonged and highly-contested electioneering period that was made worse by drought.
While the data released yesterday by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics paints a rosy overall picture, one worrying statistic stands out from the rest: the number of formal jobs generated fell to a six-year low of only 78,4000 in 2018.
This is the slowest pace of formal job growth since 2012 when the economy churned out 75,000 official jobs.
The situation is stark as it signals that there are not enough jobs generated compared to the number of young people graduating. It also means new ways ought to be found to keep these young graduates gainfully engaged.
So, even as the Jubilee Administration records its best economic performance, leaders must ask themselves what it means to score on all the right metrics used to measure economic development when it does not guarantee Kenyan youth that they will have opportunities to make an honest living once they leave school.
Perhaps it is also time to have a national conversation about whether gross domestic product (GDP) is an effective measure to gauge the prosperity of a nation.
While the GDP remains a useful metric for measuring production, there needs to be increased focus on alternative measures of a people’s well-being.
For example, the United Nations has the Human Development Index (HDI) while the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) introduced the Better Life Index as measures of welfare.
These indices take into account metrics such as life expectancy, general health, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living to measure the success of nations and economies.
Kenyans taxpayers need to not just hear that their economy has grown, they also need to feel the effects of this growth. od. Prosperity that trickles down from the top and translates to an improved standard of living is better still.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
