Thousands In Nairobi Show Up For Interviews To Fill 150 Job Vacancies [VIDEO]
Some were seen to be clad in suits and ties, while others wore official dresses while braving the cold weather in their quest to get the advertised job positions.
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Thousands of Kenyans on Friday, June 16 showed up bright and early at British multinational private security company G4S' headquarters in Nairobi for job interviews.
A video shared by Citizen Digital showed huge queues consisting of thousands of candidates outside the security firm's headquarters in Embakasi seeking to fill 150 slots.
G4S was seeking to employ Kenyans in positions like Courier clerks, controllers, Customer service, Security Officers, and credit controllers, among others.
Some were seen to be clad in suits and ties, while others wore official dresses while braving the cold weather in their quest to get the advertised job positions.
Here is the video:
Thousands of Kenyans turn up for a job interview at G4S headquarters in Embakasi, Nairobi to fill about 150 slots pic.twitter.com/kFCu8UnnYg — Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) June 16, 2023
"Na bado hustler government inataka kujengea watu manyumba (and the hustler government still wants to build houses for people) instead of creating an enabling environment that can create job opportunities," multimedia journalist, Marvin Gakunyi led Kenyans in reacting to the clip on Twitter.
"But why did they shortlist such huge numbers for only 150 slots?" Lawrence Kitema wondered.
A user, Jon Reacher, responded "They don't shortlist. You just avail yourself. Then they use different criteria kuchuja wasee (to strike out candidates). I have been there for such an interview several times but I was unsuccessful."
State Of Employment In Kenya
A recent report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) revealed that around two-thirds of jobless Kenyans gave up looking for work or starting businesses, disheartened by lower opportunities in a tough economy that has seen many firms freeze hiring to survive.
The data covering the quarter that ended December 2022 showed that 2.01 million out of the total of 2.97 million jobless Kenyans aged between 15 and 64 who qualify for the labour force were not actively looking for employment.
The number of graduates or retrenched workers who have given up looking for work increased from 1.33 million in the quarter to June 2020 when businesses shed jobs and froze hiring at the peak of COVID-19 economic hardships. They accounted for 67.71 per cent of the people without jobs, from 65.08 per cent in September and 54.1 per cent in June 2020.
The majority of those who gave up on employment are aged between 20 and 24, followed by 25 to 29-year-olds. The 20-24-year-old demographic consists mostly of fresh graduates whose job-seeking efforts are hurt by a lack of experience and a mismatch between skills and job openings.
The large number of new entrants into the job market every year has also led to limited opportunities, forcing many to seek alternatives such as setting up small businesses.
The Kenyan government considers unemployed people as those who do not have a job, have actively been looking for employment in recent weeks, and are currently available for work. They numbered 960,001 in the review period, out of the total of 2.97 million people who were out of work.
The remaining 2.01 million are classified as potential labour force, meaning they are people of working age who either did not make any effort to seek employment even though they are available and willing to work or had sought employment but were not available to take up jobs even if the opportunity arose.
Job seekers queuing for interviews in Nairobi. /THE EAST AFRICAN
Kenya's years of strong economic growth have created jobs, but they are mostly low-paying and informal, and come at a rate that economists state is too low to absorb the rapidly growing youth population.
Jacqueline Mugo, the executive director of the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), previously stated that "on average, in Kenya, people are staying out of employment for seven years."
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), Kenya's unemployment rate was 5.6 per cent of the total labour force in 2021. This figure is higher than Tanzania's 2.7 per cent, Uganda's 4.3 per cent, DR Congo's 5.1per cent, and Burundi's 1.1 per cent.
