Manufacturing, building worst hit in Kenya's job skills gap

Employers are facing a hard time filling vacancies in the manufacturing and real estate sectors, a new survey shows, hurting growth and expansion plans by many firms.

The survey by the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) shows that some employers struggled to find suitable candidates for jobs openings requiring Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET)skill levels, especially on architecture, building and construction in the TVET category.

“The survey confirmed that 20 percent of the enterprises had hard to fill vacancies. As such, most of the respondents resorted to employing job applicants with qualifications lower than what they were looking for as indicated by 9.6 percent,” read the report in part.

“The findings revealed that 2 percent of the positions in the enterprises were hard to fill with most of the position being in the manufacturing sector,” it added.

The survey shows that the most hard-to-fill vacancies requiring a TVET skill level are in architecture, building and construction (2.3 percent), engineering (2.3 percent) and transportation, distribution and logistics (2.9 percent) while those that mostly require first-level university education are in information & technology (7.1 percent) and finance and business management (7.3 percent).”

Jobs requiring a master’s degree that was hardest to fill were in media, communication and public relations at 1 percent while those that mostly require doctorate qualification are in science and mathematics (0.4 percent).

Some 20 in 100 surveyed enterprises said the other reason employers are not filling vacancies is a lack of qualified candidates in the companies’ locality, high salary expectations by candidates (26 percent) and 21 percent were not willing to relocate.

“There is a bigger issue of filing job vacancies,” says Ms Jacqueline Mugo the chief executive officer and executive director at the FKE.

“We are recommending a focus on specific skills to be able to fill these vacancies, greater collaboration between industries and the training institutions and empowering of TVETs on engineering and IT-related areas; those are the hottest areas in demand.”

Information technology, finance and business management, transport and logistics and software engineering are some of the most demanded skills by Kenyan enterprises, the survey shows, while effective communication and critical thinking are the most sought-after skills in job categories.

About 28.4 per cent of businesses surveyed are looking for professionals with an IT background while 27.4 percent seek finance and business managers, engineers (19.2 percent) or transport and logistics (18.6 percent).

While these skills are in high demand, employers say they are having trouble filling vacancies as most job seekers do not meet the criteria for job placement.

“Some of the consequences of skills deficit experienced by enterprises inhibition of business expansion (25 percent), loss of revenue 24 percent and loss of customers or market share (21 percent),” the report read in part.

Ms Mugo says for the real estate sector, there is no link between the collapses of buildings to skill set, and that the incidents could be a result of other factors such as construction in riparian land. She says another study should be carried out on the same.

A total of 521 enterprises participated in the FKE survey.

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