Inadequate skills, obsolete technology blunt Kenyan firms’ competitive edge

Most of the manufacturers hire temporary manual labour to move goods around on their backs instead of using forklifts to optimise and offset the costs of higher productivity.

Every day, a long trail of men and women creep into the Industrial Area in Nairobi - Kenya’s oldest manufacturing belt - in the wee hours of the morning.

They are mostly from the surrounding Sinai Slum in what is a typical working week of a top Kenyan manufacturer.