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Economy creates 897,800 jobs, best yet under Uhuru

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Jobseekers in Mombasa. New jobs generated in 2017 stood at 65,700 more than 832,100 the previous year. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The economy generated 897,800 jobs in 2017, handing President Uhuru Kenyatta his best annual performance since he took the reins of power more than five years ago.

Despite a sluggish economic growth of 4.9 per cent—the slowest in five years attributed to adverse weather and prolonged electioneering —the number of new jobs generated in 2017 stood at 65,700 more than 832,100 the previous year.

Data released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) on Wednesday, however, shows that 87.8 per cent of the new jobs or 787,000 positions were created in the informal sector.

The labour market, which attracts about one million new formal job seekers every year, also recorded an impressive 36.6 per cent growth in wage jobs, up from 75,500 in 2016 to 103,100 last year. The rest of the jobs, 6,900, were unpaid family labour.

“The new (wage) jobs included extra personnel engaged in the public sector to serve in the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC” said KNBS director general Zachary Mwangi.

Last year, several public and private sector entities hired temporary staff, to perform elections-related tasks. The IEBC itself hired at least 17,000 temporary staff directly, among them 1,775 voter registration assistants, 15,686 clerks and 580 constituency ICT clerks.

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The data further shows that of all the wage jobs created, 53,900 were in the public sector with private sector accounting for the remaining 49,200.

The economy’s jobs creation momentum had previously grown steadily from 755,800 in 2013 to a peak of 844,400 in 2015, before declining to 832,900 in 2016.

The 897, 800 new jobs in 2017, however, falls 102,200 below million target that Mr Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto first set themselves in their Jubilee coalition’s 2013 election manifesto.

Of all the 2017 new jobs, education was the single largest contributor, generating one in every five jobs created.

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Other top job creators were agriculture (12.5 per cent), manufacturing (11.4 per cent), public administration (9.9 per cent) and retail sector (9.4 per cent). 

Ironically, the fastest growing sectors – tourism, financial and professional services - each accounted for less than three per cent of jobs generated last year.