By Kamundia Muriithi
The Government has launched a survey to establish skills mismatch in the informal sector in a bid to generate interventions to address skill challenges in the sector.
The Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities Project has been launched in six locations of Embu County and will run for four months. It will be conducted by the Labour Department in partnership with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
Skills among employees and their employers in the Jua Kali Sector will be established and any gap will in future be addressed through trainings and empowerment programmes.
Benson Karugu, a representative from KNBS, said the move will improve productivity, create jobs in micro-enterprises, support innovations and improve job and earning opportunities.
“The information will act as a guide to the Government to come up with policies, the budgetary allocation and resources needed for investment to address the skills mismatch,” he said.
Chamber of Commerce and Industry Embu Chairman Samuel Kanyi invited the business community to support the programme, observing they stood to benefit from improved performance from their employees.
He said it would also address the prevalent disconnect in terms of skills between job seekers and the job demands.
He called on training institutions to offer job-oriented programmes and courses to enable easy transition of youths to the job market.
“Most of the courses offered in colleges do not provide the necessary skills needed in the job market. Students also overlook internships in the informal sector. This is a challenge for the country as it seeks to achieve the manufacturing goal of the Big Four agenda,” he said.
