Introduction: The Limitations of the Unemployment Metric
Unemployment is widely understood as
the core metric of labour market health. It appears in government statements,
media headlines, donor reports, and academic summaries. It is treated as the
primary proxy for understanding whether people are working — and whether an economy
is moving forward.
But in Kenya, particularly when it
comes to the country’s youth, unemployment is not telling the full story.
What happens when young people stop
looking for work entirely? What about those who are technically employed, but
stuck in low-hour, unstable, or informal jobs they don’t want? What about the
ones who aren’t working, aren’t studying, and aren’t training for anything?
These are not edge cases. They are
the core of Kenya’s youth labour market crisis.
The Data Source: Unpacking Kenya’s Labour Force Survey
The insights in this article are
drawn from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS). This is a modular survey under the broader Kenya
Continuous Household Survey framework, designed to track socio-economic trends
quarterly and annually. The QLFS module collects detailed data on labour
activities for Kenyans aged 15 and above, and is aligned with international
standards from the International Labour Organization (ILO).
I have analyzed data that spans 2019
to 2022 — a period that captures both baseline labour patterns and the major
economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For this analysis, I focused on
three datasets (tables) from the KNBS QLFS reports:
- Unemployment by Age
- Labour Underutilization (LU2)
- Youth Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)
Each metric captures a different
dimension of how young people interact (or fail to interact) with the labour
market.
Understanding the Key Indicators: Unemployment, LU2, and NEET
Most people are familiar with unemployment:
individuals who are willing and able to work, actively seeking work, but unable
to find it. It is the most visible and widely reported labour metric in Kenya,
East Africa region and the world. Here are metrics that deepen this
understanding.
Labour Underutilization (LU2) expands the view. It is a metric that combines the
unemployed with those who are employed part-time or irregularly, but desire and
are available for more work. It reflects underemployment — a condition
often hidden in employment statistics or figures.
Then there is NEET: young
people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training. This indicator
captures a more severe form of disengagement. NEET individuals are not working,
not in school, and not in any skills-training program. They have, functionally,
exited the system—the job market.
These two--NEET and LU2 expose a
broader spectrum of exclusion that is often invisible in official narratives —
yet essential for understanding structural challenges in youth development,
productivity, and national planning.
Key Findings: What the Data Reveals
The most alarming insights come from
triangulating these three metrics over time.
1.
High Youth Unemployment Is Persistent — and Age-Skewed
In Q2 2022, the unemployment rate
for Kenyans aged 20–24 was 20.2%. For those aged 25–29, it
stood at 12.0%. These are not temporary spikes; they are part of a
sustained pattern going back to at least 2019.
By contrast, unemployment for older
cohorts — such as 30–34 (5.9%) and 35–39 (5.1%) — was
consistently below 6%. This suggests that the burden of joblessness is not
evenly distributed. It is structurally concentrated in younger age bands.
2.
Labour Underutilization Reveals the Hidden Slack
While unemployment was 20.2% for
20–24-year-olds in Q2 2022, their Labour Underutilization (LU2) rate was
28.9% — nearly 9 percentage points higher.
This indicates that many young people
who are technically employed are, in fact, working fewer hours than they want
or in roles that do not reflect their training or aspirations. These
individuals do not show up in unemployment figures — yet they represent a
significant form of economic underperformance.
The LU2 metric is essential for
understanding the true extent of underemployment, especially in informal
sectors, gig work, and unstable service jobs, which dominate the youth
employment landscape in Kenya.
3.
The NEET Crisis: Over 2.5 Million Youth Completely Disconnected
The most sobering finding comes from
the NEET data. These youth are not working, not in school, and not in
any skills-training program. They have, functionally, exited the system.
In Q2 2022 report:
- 1.45 million
Kenyans aged 20–24 were NEET.
- 1.08 million
aged 25–29 were also NEET.
- That’s over 2.5 million youth between the ages
of 20 and 29 who were neither working, studying, nor training for
anything.
This group is not just unemployed.
They are not in the system at all. The NEET rate for 20–24-year-olds stood at 31.1%
— meaning nearly one in three young adults in that age group were fully
disengaged.
This is the silent collapse of
participation. It poses long-term risks for productivity, mental health, social
stability, and economic resilience.
Why This Matters: Beyond the Numbers
Kenya’s policy discourse around youth
employment has often centered on job creation. That focus, while necessary, is
no longer sufficient.
A generation is not only unemployed
— it is increasingly underemployed, under-engaged, and disconnected. If policy
continues to treat unemployment as the sole indicator of labour distress, then
the country will consistently misdiagnose the problem and mistarget
its interventions.
The distinction matters:
- An unemployed person may benefit from job search
assistance.
- An underutilized person may need upskilling or stable
opportunities.
- A NEET individual may require re-engagement programs
that address deeper issues like access, trust, and long-term motivation.
Each of these requires a different
toolset, a different budget line, and a different form of coordination across
ministries, counties, funders, and communities.
Implications for Stakeholders
The data in this analysis has
relevance across multiple domains:
- For government:
Labour statistics must include LU2 and NEET in both tracking and reporting
frameworks. These metrics should inform national planning, county
budgeting, and youth program design.
- For funders and NGOs:
Program designs should account for varied states of disengagement,
not just unemployment. A single-track intervention may miss the majority
of the problem.
- For educational institutions: Persistent NEET levels raise questions about post-graduation
transitions. There is a need to rethink the interface between training
and the real labour market.
- For employers:
High LU2 rates imply that young people are available, willing to work, and
underutilized — but that formal labour systems may not be absorbing them
effectively.
The
Analytical Process: A Brief Note
This project emerged from a personal
question: What is really happening beneath the surface of Kenya’s youth
labour market?
To answer it, I pulled raw labour
data from KNBS reports (PDF tables) for the years 2019 to 2022. Using tools
like NotebookLM and DeepSeek, I extracted and cleaned key datasets across
quarters, focusing on unemployment, labour underutilization (LU2), and NEET.
From there, I structured the data
for analysis, built out quarterly comparisons, calculated rates, identified
trends, and layered those trends across age groups. The goal was not to make a
dashboard — it was to surface meaning.
This article is the first in a
series that seeks to turn local data into public insight.
Conclusion: A Broader Lens Is Needed
Unemployment may be the most visible
number in the youth employment debate — but it is no longer the most useful.
When nearly one in three young adults is NEET, and when underutilization rates
significantly exceed official jobless figures, then the true nature of the crisis
lies deeper.
Kenya must expand its lens. Any
serious discussion of youth, jobs, and economic resilience must include the
full spectrum of labour market participation: unemployment, underemployment,
and disengagement.
Failing to see the full picture is
not a data issue. It is a policy choice. And it is time we chose better.
To its credit, the Kenyan government
has initiated a range of programs to address the complexities of youth
unemployment. The National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) project, backed by Ksh33 billion
and supported by the World Bank, aims to empower over one million young people
across all 47 counties through skills development, income-generating equipment,
and savings promotion over five years. Complementing this, the Kenya Jobs and Economic Transformation (KJET) initiative seeks to provide new or
improved job opportunities to at least 45,000 Kenyans, with a significant focus
on women and youth. Recognizing global demand for skilled labor, the government
has also introduced Kazi
Majuu, an overseas employment scheme supported by the Youth Enterprise Development Fund,
which offers up to Ksh300,000 in interest-free loans to cover visa and travel
costs. These initiatives represent positive steps toward expanding both local
and global employment avenues for Kenyan youth.(MSEA, World
Bank).
About the Author
JP Mwangi is a data analyst, writer, and founder of Signal &
Noise, a thinking journal exploring data-driven insight and decision-making
in Kenya and Africa. His work focuses on turning local data into usable
narratives for public dialogue and institutional strategy.
Follow this project at: GitHub.