Deputy President Kithure Kindiki now says that the country must be creative and innovative to be able to mitigate the growing number of jobless youths.
Speaking when he received a technical briefing on progress of interventions in critical value chains in agriculture, Kindiki noted that while over 800,000 graduate to the job market every year, the country is only able to provide 200,000 jobs.
He said that this has been leaving a yearly deficit of 600,000 jobless youths, without income.
“Every year around 800,000 young people exit the education system at different levels. The economy has been absorbing 200,000 every year, leaving an annual deficit of 600,000. The country must be innovative to mitigate against the bulge of many young people who do not have jobs or income opportunities,” the Deputy President said.
He went on to say that this is the reason job creation remains a huge pillar in the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (Beta).
He said various state departments and agencies are currently creating opportunities both in public and private sectors through interventions of the Kenya Kwanza administration.
Kindiki said these jobs include short term, long term and permanent opportunities.
Some of them, he said, are done digitally and others through the labour mobility programme launched by the government, where Kenyans go to work abroad.
“This agenda of job creation is a huge pillar which carries onboard many programmes in many MDAs. We have programmes that are creating jobs in the economy through the public and private sectors, influenced by state interventions," he said.
“We have short term, long term and permanent job creation initiatives, we have digital job creation initiatives and we have the labour mobility job creation initiatives outside the country."
The DP reiterated the government’s commitment to improving value chains in critical sectors that provide livelihoods for the majority of Kenyans.
Agriculture, fisheries, mining are just some of these areas.
