The number of working days lost in public service increased 20 times last year, new data shows, on lengthy industrial action by various groups, including doctors and lecturers.
Data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) showed that lost workdays—the total number of workdays lost due to an employee’s absence as a result of strikes, injury, illness, or disease—hit 425,200 in 2024, up from 21,105 workdays in 2022.
The data sourced through the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection indicates that although there were fewer strikes than in previous years, this is the highest loss in working hours since 2018.
This, coming amid a drop in similar strikes in the private sector, indicates a significant economic loss attributed to the frequent disputes between the government and its workers.
Last year marked the first joint strike of several public servants’ unions in many years, with State employees, including doctors, lecturers, nurses, country government staff, and teachers among others, taking to the streets to protest the planned Housing Levy deductions in the Finance Bill 2023.
Individual institutions such as Egerton University also recorded several days of work stoppage due to worker strikes. Similarly, nurses in different counties walked out of their workstations in protest of delayed pay and poor working conditions.
According to the data by the Alfred Mutua-led ministry, there were seven economically impactful strikes last year, involving 1,370 workers, a drop from the 25 strikes involving 4,328 workers recorded across both public and private sectors in 2022.
Experts argue that the meteoric rise in the work time lost indicates an increase in lost output, meaning that the strikes directly contributed to slowing down the country’s economic growth.
“Those man-days mean lost output, and therefore it means reduced levels of competitiveness, and also lost orders for certain organisations,” said labour economist Jacob Omolo.
“That lost output is what is aggregated to the GDP (gross domestic product), so we also lost in terms of GDP.”
In the private sector, there were no strikes recorded by the ministry last year, highlighting a go-slow by trade unions amid heightened economic uncertainty, with several employers planning or already executing layoffs.
Dr Omolo, who is also a senior lecturer and director of research at Kenyatta University, argues that the drop in private sector strikes may partly be attributed to the tightness in the labour market currently, stemming from the economic difficulties and uncertainties in the country.
“It is true the labour market is tight. Last year, a number of organisations had given indications that they would do redundancies or layoffs. That alone is able to instill some fear among workers,” Dr Omolo said.
Since 2021, the private sector – led by the construction, commerce, and manufacturing industries – has been recording more days lost to strikes than the public sector. In 2022, for instance, the private sector lost 195,801 man-days to strikes, while the public sector lost only 21,105 man-days.
