Building castles in the air: Kenyans want jobs, not just talk and numbers

Factory, Manual Worker, Quality Control - Biscuit Factory Worker Standing Besides the Conveyor Belt, Stacking the Freshly Baked Cookies for Packaging.[Getty Images] As Kenyans bemusedly endure this administration's penchant for costly foreign travel and local development tours in a tough economic environment, it is not surprising that the 2027 election agenda is already framing itself in our politics and in our households. Yes, the macro-economy has stabilised, but where are the jobs that dignify our lives, put money in our pockets, and place food on our tables? The irony in these development tours is their attendance by people not at work, or diverted away from their daily work. It used to be a simple question - why would you attend a public rally on a working day? It is now a more difficult question - why wouldn't you attend this rally to express your views? About jobs? Jobs, including livelihoods and other income opportunities, are always a source of public expectation, and angst, whether it's new opportunities or better work conditions. Remember, jobs, as well as cost of living, hunger, insecurity and corruption are the most frequently polled concerns among Kenyans. Consider too that your typical household seeks what I refer to as five basics - food, basic rights (education, health, water, shelter, safety nets), income opportunities and access to assets as safety ropes, active participation in governance (during and between elections) and rule of law (safety, security and accessible justice). Happily, this administration made job creation one of its six outcome objectives, alongside food security, lower cost of living, an enhanced tax base, increased forex earnings and inclusive economic growth. Indeed, jobs were the third of the President William Ruto's three-part 2022 electoral campaign agenda, alongside promises to defend the constitution and institutionalise (or depersonalise) our political and governance practices. In addresses made to Kenyans as 2024 closed into 2025, the President emphasised his administration's progress in job creation. I like data, so let's quietly follow it. In the November State of the Nation (SOTN) address we learned that 164,000 jobs had been created through the affordable housing programme. This was a significant downgrade from earlier official claims of 206,000 jobs created. Except that the subsequent Jamhuri Day and New Year addresses went back up to 200,000 jobs. Who is doing this dodgy counting? SOTN also informed us that government had facilitated 105,367 overseas jobs for Kenyans and the National Employment Authority has created over 560,000 more of these job openings. By the time of the Jamhuri Day address a fortnight later, the number of overseas jobs had more than doubled to 243,000! Because these numbers are not aligned to either calendar or financial years, it is bravely assumed that these numbers are totals since this administration took office. So, what other jobs data did we hear, mostly from the Jamhuri Day address? On actual jobs: 107,000 community health promoters and 56,000 teachers as public sector jobs; 840,000 MSME jobs in 2024 alone and 14,000 jobs in export processing zones (EPZs) and special economic zones (SEZs). Added 180,000 youth linked to online job opportunities and 21,560 Kenyans engaged in the ClimateWorX programme. As earlier stated, it is impossible to apply a time frame to this total of 1.4 to 1.5 million jobs, as well as the one million jobs total in the New Year address. Fortunately, Kenya Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) will shed light on this data in our next Economic Survey. KNBS confirmation notwithstanding, there will be public skepticism on these pronouncements, especially when private sector players such as the Federation of Kenyan Employers are decrying ongoing job losses. To be clear, these official addresses also speak to future jobs - a programme preparing 20 million Kenyans for the digital economy when only 690,000 have been trained so far; a plan to hire 20,000 more teachers; an expectation that EPZs and SEZs will create 56,000 jobs and a pledge to get two million Kenyans employed overseas. Lest we forget, this administration is on public notice owing to its fondness for endless promises. The real question that emerges is "what is this administration's jobs agenda"? The President has spoken of a very deliberate agenda. Other officials have spoken of kazi majuu, kazi mitandaoni, kazi mashinani (overseas jobs, online jobs, jobs on the ground). Their manifesto mentions the word "jobs" 31 times but only offers targets in two areas: 100,000 jobs per year through affordable housing and 100,000 jobs in total in the leather sub-sector, although we heard about a million jobs a year in total on the campaign trail. Remember, of course, that the government doesn't create jobs, it creates a job-enabling environment. When we delve into the Fourth Medium-Term Plan (MTP IV) under Vision 2030 and the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (Beta), the jobs agenda is centred in six areas: MSMEs; agricultural productivity and value chains; digital superhighway and creative economy; affordable housing; EPZs, SEZs and industrial parks and, last but not least, more teachers and health practitioners. Although these are not the areas we are hearing from our politicos, they make perfect sense in aligning with the Beta pillars. However, yet again, this administration falls down on its data; the numbers in MTP IV/BETA are all over the place. At a macro-level, the plan is to create six million jobs in its five-year term; 1.8 million (30 per cent) of which would be formal, and informal at 4.2 million (70 per cent). The stated intention is to lift the share of formal employment from 19 per cent of 19 million to 40 per cent of 25 million. This is a mathematical absurdity - at the planned job creation rate, formal jobs will only get to 22, not 40, per cent! For the record, the 2024 KNBS Economic Survey shows that the administration was off-target in both absolute and relative numbers in its first year (2023) - 120,000 formal jobs against a target of 189,000, and 730,000 informal jobs against a target of 807,000 for an overall shortfall of 136,000. For clarity, the targets for last year and this year are respectively 1.1 million (264,000 formal, 836,000 informal in a 24:76 ratio) and 1.207 million (374,000 formal; 833,000 informal in a 31:69 ratio). Basically, going back to earlier, this administration should have facilitated 2.069 million new jobs by the end of 2024. Let's go the micro-level data in the plan. There is clearly no alignment with the macro-level data. Across the sectors where job creation numbers are provided, the five-year target comes to an incredulous 26 million new jobs, including 16 million jobs in manufacturing (11 million informal), five million young entrepreneurs, two million overseas jobs (as stated earlier), a million jobs each in MSMEs and online jobs for the youth (not 20 million?) and 500,000 jobs in the dairy sector. Separately, but in the self-same plan, the Labour ministry puts total five-year job creation at 5.3 million, with 600,000 as overseas jobs! In all of this planning, there is none of the nuance that informed the entire "Hustler agenda" in the first place! Here's my trilemma. Should we take official jobs announcements with a pinch of salt, especially where they might contrast the real picture on the ground? Does this administration have a coherent jobs agenda?

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