Kenya has a uniquely low percentage of youth Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) at 15 per cent in Africa attributed to high literacy status.
However, NEET youth in Kenya are almost twice as likely to be female at 19% compared to male at 11%, illustrating a gender disparity that stems from the education system.
Although Kenya has a high literacy level, men are more educated than women at 85 and 78 per cent respectively.
According to the latest Africa Youth Employment Clock by World Data Lab and the Mastercard Foundation, the figure is way above the continental average of 25 per cent, illustrating a strong employability status.
Kenya’s rate of adult literacy as a share of the country's population 15 years and above increased by 5.33 per cent to 82.9 per cent last year according to the United Nations (UNESCO).
"Kenya’s youth labour market is characterised by high youth employment in the services sector, low shares of NEET, and high education attainment relative to African averages,'' says the reported mapping 52 countries in the continent.
The Employment Clock is a tool that monitors real-time job growth and forecasts employment trends for African youth in Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, and Ethiopia through to 2030.
It aspires to become the go-to place for youth employment data in Africa, allowing diverse stakeholders to have access to data to feed discussions on solutions that enable young people to thrive economically.
The Clock seeks to democratise data and make it actionable. It aligns with the Mastercard Foundation's mission to enable 30 million young people in Africa to secure dignified and fulfilling work by 2030.
The Clock’s data analytical model offers credible estimates of labour market outcomes for youth disaggregated by; gender, age, location, educational attainment and sector.
The tool is being launched at the time the continent is expected to experience its highest-ever youth population growth in this decade (2021 – 2030), with the population projected to increase by almost 100 million between 2023 and 2030.
According to the report, an estimated 23 million (4.5%) young Africans are unemployed, with this sum likely to increase to almost 27 million by 2030.
Last year, 128 million (25 per cent) youth were estimated to be NEET, with this number projected to grow to 157 million (26%) by 2030.
"Enabling access to dignified and fulfilling work for Africa’s youth is more important than ever before, to harness this demographic dividend and drive Africa’s economic growth,'' the survey notes.
According to the report, 60 per cent of Kenya’s youth population is employed, this is a higher share employed than the African average of 52 per cent.
Of the 11.63 million young Kenyans working, 89 per cent, or 10.37 million, work in the informal sector. At least 52 percent of employed Kenyan youth work in services, and 89 per cent of jobs created for youth between 2020 and 2023 were in services.
Kenya’s youth population is 19.5 million and is expected to grow by 16 per cent to 22.7 million by 2030.
Currently, the global youth population growth rate stands at 2.4 per cent through to 2030; Africa’s average growth rate is significantly higher, at 18.5 per cent.
The Clock draws from surveys and datasets made available by national statistics offices, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).