Agricultural firm Kakuzi added 188 jobs last year, coinciding with the period profits more than doubled on increased production and sales.
Kakuzi discloses in the latest annual report that it closed the financial year ended December 2022 with 3,433 employees, up from 3,245 in the previous year. The category of workers classified as other unionisable employees jumped from 3,245 to 3,435 as those in management positions also rose by six to hit 70.
The rise in the number of employees under the two categories more than compensated for the fall in permanent unionisable employees from 761 to 731.
The latest staff count is, however, yet to match that of 2020 when Kakuzi added 753 jobs to close the year with 3,760. Kakuzi’s total payroll costs rose by 8.1 percent to Sh992 million in the review period, up from Sh918.6 million the year before.
The staff costs look set to rise further this year after the firm signed a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that gave its unionisable workers a pay rise of nine percent last December, with a similar hike expected this year.
“We once again signed a CBA which gave employees an 18 percent wage award over two years,” says Nicholas Ng’ang’a, chairman at Kakuzi.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm increased production of its key products such as avocado while sales rose 34.5 percent to Sh4.4 billion.
