Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the country, thousands of Kenyans have been rendered jobless as companies face tough financial times.

The number of youth country-wide looking for jobs was shown yesterday in Eldoret after over 500 youths showed up for 20 supermarket job openings.

Despite the government's efforts to help the jobless youth through the Kazi Mtaani initiative, thousands of Kenyans are willing to take odd jobs to make ends meet.

Speaking to KTN News, one of the applicants lauded the government for creating jobs through Kazi Mtaani but insisted that more youth are still jobless judging by the turnout for the supermarket positions.

Another applicant said he studied computer science and information technology, but he is yet to get a job.

One of the management staff said she was shocked by the high turn-up, especially since they only needed to hire 20 people.

"Today (July 22), we are conducting interviews, as you can see, but what has shocked us is that the turn-up is so high that we did not expect around 500 youths.

"This is really heartbreaking, that so many youths are unemployed and most of them are saying they lost their jobs during this COVID situation. It is really unfortunate because out of 500 people, we only need 20. We cannot over-staff," said the employer.

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