When Velma Muhando enrolled at Eldoret National Polytechnic in 2020, she expected her training in child care and protection would lead to a career in the field.
Three years later, she is working as an administrator at Life Ministry Kenya in Kisumu — a job partly made possible by skills acquired in college, but not directly related to her qualification.
Between 2020 and 2022, Ms Muhando pursued a craft certificate in child care. Since graduating, she has volunteered with various organisations and occasionally applied her training, but has yet to secure a professional job in the field.
“What I studied and what I did are two totally different things,” she says. “I have also not gotten a job in relation to what I studied, apart from my field attachment.”
Her experience mirrors that of thousands of young Kenyans who have entered the labour market with qualifications but found limited opportunities in their areas of training.
For Clifford Mutuma, who graduated from the Technical University of Mombasa with a diploma in public relations in July 2022, employment was expected to follow soon after graduation.
“I expected that I would maybe get myself a job fairly quickly after graduation, but it took me a while,” he says.
Instead, Mr Mutuma turned to short-term work and volunteering.
His graduation came at a significant moment for Kenya’s labour market. The 2022 General Election brought ambitious promises from the incoming Kenya Kwanza administration to tackle unemployment, particularly among young people.
The government pledged to create up to 1.5 million jobs annually, with agriculture, housing, manufacturing and other sectors identified as key engines of employment. It also promised to make Sh50 billion available every year through the Hustler Fund and other financing mechanisms to support micro, small and medium enterprises.
Formal wage employment growth in Kenya has declined sharply, from 6.0 per cent in 2021 to 2.8 per cent in 2025.
Four years later, questions remain over whether the scale and nature of job creation match those expectations.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics provides part of the answer. The figures measure jobs created across the economy and cannot be directly attributed to the Kenya Kwanza administration.
According to KNBS, Kenya’s economy created about 2.45 million jobs between 2023 and 2025. About 2.14 million — roughly 87 per cent — were in the informal sector, while only about 307,000 were added to the modern or formal sector.
The latest Economic Survey, covering 2025, shows another 822,100 jobs were created, pushing recorded employment outside small-scale agriculture to 21.6 million, up from 20.8 million in 2024. But 87.2 per cent of the jobs created that year were informal.
For Jacqueline Mugo, chief executive of the Federation of Kenya Employers, the challenge is not simply the number of jobs being created, but their quality and sustainability.
“It is practical and possible for Kenya to create a million jobs a year,” Ms Mugo says. “The issue is where those jobs are being created.”
Ken Gichinga, chief economist at Mentoria Economics, similarly points to private-sector growth, government borrowing and public investment as factors affecting employment creation.
Ken Gichinga, chief economist at Mentoria Economics.
Photo credit: Pool
For young people entering the labour market, however, the debate over the numbers is less abstract.
Ms Muhando says her experience has challenged the assumption that acquiring an education automatically translates into employment.
In her class, only nine students enrolled for the newly separated child-care course. “We expected that because we were just nine, all of us would be absorbed,” she says.
That expectation has not materialised, with some classmates never finding employment while others opted for different fields.
Mr Mutuma says qualifications can also become a barrier when employers demand higher academic credentials or experience for entry-level positions.
Despite not working in the field full-time, Ms Muhando says volunteering has reminded her why she chose it.
“Every time I go out there, maybe in the juvenile prison or rehabilitation centres, I come back home with so much fulfilment,” she says.
As formal employment remains difficult to secure, a growing number of young Kenyans are turning to digital platforms.
For delivery rider Richard Muiza, entering the platform economy requires little more than a smartphone, a driving licence and the ability to meet operating costs.
But flexibility comes at a cost. Riders must finance their own data, airtime, fuel, insurance and other expenses.
Another rider, Richard Odera, says the difficult economic environment has forced many workers to remain in jobs they might otherwise leave.
He spends about Sh500 a day on fuel and can make roughly Sh2,500, but says the income has to stretch across his expenses and savings.
For some riders, the platform economy has also created opportunities to become entrepreneurs. Godfrey Lotukai says a driving licence can provide a pathway beyond individual deliveries, allowing riders to employ others and build businesses around transport and delivery services.
The programme targets young people through skills development, apprenticeships, entrepreneurship support and access to finance, including a Sh5 billion allocation for seed capital to 100,000 young entrepreneurs.
The Hustler Fund has meanwhile disbursed more than Sh90 billion to about 28 million digital borrowers, with roughly 60 per cent aged below 40.
But for employment advocates, the larger challenge remains creating an economy capable of generating sufficient decent and sustainable jobs without relying overwhelmingly on informal work.
Ms Mugo says Kenya also needs to prepare its young workforce for opportunities beyond its borders as demand for skilled labour grows globally.
“We are creating the future workers for the world. We’re not just talking about Kenya alone,” she says.
She points to technology, agriculture, manufacturing and opportunities emerging through the African Continental Free Trade Area as sectors that could absorb more young workers if properly supported.
For young Kenyans such as Ms Muhando and Mr Mutuma, however, the question is immediate: after years of education and preparation, where are the jobs?
For those unable to find them, the answer is increasingly being found not in the traditional work-place, but behind a smartphone screen, on a motorcycle or bicycle, and within Kenya’s rapidly expanding digital platform economy.
