Majority of unemployed Kenyans are the youth. The biggest horror of a new graduate is tarmacking in search of employment after studying for four, six years or even more for the longer courses. Well, in Kenya it has become a rite of passage. You have to be mentally prepared for it. The few lucky graduates get employment that fit their courses while a bunch are absorbed into different working places that don’t exactly match their courses and the rest are left to wander.
But why is there a scarcity of jobs in Kenya?
Economists have pointed out that recently, businesses or rather employers are faced with high operating costs. Most of them have been forced to down size their businesses and scrap out jobs to reduce their costs of production. This is understandable. A business has to make profits! The resultant effect would be fewer jobs in the market since a majority of small medium sized enterprises have enough workforce and have no room for new employment.
A couple of cabinet secretaries and politicians (government employees) have come out to console the youth confirming to them that indeed there are no jobs in Kenya. For them, entrepreneurship would be their way out that is if they want to make a living.
My take is that sending the youth to another zone of stress (entrepreneurship) with no exposure, experience or proper finances is likely to result in the same problems that there was-to-be employers are currently facing. But what is there to do if there are no jobs?
But is this the case?
A couple of weeks ago, our media told a story of one, Kevin Ochieng Obede who scored straight A’s at Maranda High School before proceeding to the University of Nairobi where he did Actuarial Science course and graduated with a First Class honors. However, despite his academic success, he was still yet to get a job and reap where he had sowed. He claimed that he had applied for several jobs in vain. A certain politician claimed that he chosen the wrong career yet he did not go an extra mile to upgrade his course.
After his story aired on a Sunday evening, he received several job offers the next day (i.e. Monday). It was a good gesture by Kenyans in helping the needy young man. What is baffling is that some of the offers were from businesses which had previously rejected his job applications. It begs one to think. Is there a scarcity of jobs, or does it depend on who is asking?
Employment should be a voluntary exercise, one of a willing employer-employee. No one forces an employer to get workers, it is the business that does that. What employers need to understand is that a business may not have a certain specific job title like Kevin’s example “Actuarial Scientist” but that doesn’t mean that the work available cannot be done by him.
Amongst the Job opportunities offered to Kevin was one from a leading law firm. Probably the job title or requirements were not for Actuarial science but somehow the firm was willing to squeeze him into a job position that could see him put part of his skills to use.
Why we should stop focusing on Job titles?
This is because the 4 – year course degree program contains a collection of various subjects. It’s an Actuarial Scientist who has the knowledge in abcd subjects. These are generally several distinct areas that constitute the degree. Right?
This is similar to many other degree courses which low-minded citizens consider useless. Yet they are not! We should stop focusing on job titles vis-à-vis the “name” of the degree/diploma but rather the skills that a graduate possesses in relation to the job description.
We cannot wait for the next graduate to visit a television station to air out their ‘grievances’.
By Mwangi Emmanuel – Managing Partner
