Unemployment driving youth to an early grave

Eric Bulinda, a former student of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, embodies the frustration unemployed university graduates face in life.

Unable to secure a job after graduating in 2018, Bulinda earns a living prospecting for gold in River Isiukhu, Kakamega County.

“I was hired by boards of management of schools on three occasions and I taught for a while before calling it quits. The boards couldn’t pay my salary, yet I have a family to take care of,” he says.

Bulinda is not alone. Many graduates across the country have been forced into doing odd jobs here and there just to earn a living, no matter the meagre pay. While others have completely given up and lost hope.

When she was in school, Levis Musembe never imagined that, upon graduation, life would be unforgiving and difficult. A human resource graduate from Moi University, Musembe had looked forward to a promising future when he finally graduated in 2017.

“When I stepped into the job market, it dawned on me that an academic degree is not a guarantee for securing a white-collar job. Looking for a job was not easy. The only option left was to swallow my pride and join hundreds of artisanal miners working in mining pits in my village,” says Musembe.

Unlike Bulinda and Musembe, most graduates are either not willing, or cannot find something to fall back on, and a majority become susceptible to depression with disastrous consequences.

As more graduates get into the job market every year, they are confronted with the reality that there is a serious paucity of white-collar jobs out there yet their training has not prepared them for such an eventuality.

Every year, thousands of graduates leave institutions of higher education yet the job market keeps shrinking. Psychologist Cecilia Mutemi says Kenya’s education system is largely to blame and should be redesigned to bring out innovators.

“Innovators are employers, such that they come out with open minds. Let us fashion them from the word go with entrepreneurial skills. They should start businesses if jobs are not forthcoming. Some have done that and become employers. For me, the mindset matters most,” says Mutemi.

Increasingly, however, frustrated university graduates unable to find white-collar jobs are taking the easy way out by committing suicide. In the last few years, there have been cases of graduates taking their lives out of frustration after failing to find good jobs.

Engineer, Robert Gituhu

The recent death of 28-year-old mechanical engineer, Robert Gituhu, underscores the hopelessness wrought by the twin problems of runaway unemployment and now, a high cost of living in Kenya.

Gituhu succumbed to injuries sustained after he set himself ablaze on August 17 in Mombasa. It is believed man took his life after becoming frustrated with life.

In a video posted on social media, the young graduate emphasized that he was frustrated by the high cost of living.  “If maize flour prices are not reduced, I better die”, Gituhu said in the video shortly before dousing himself with petrol and striking a matchbox.

Mohamed Bouazizi

Gituhu’s self-immolation is reminiscent of the December 17, 2010, incident in which Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian who sold vegetables atop a wheelbarrow despite possessing a university degree, set himself ablaze to protest police harassment and a high cost of living. His eventual death on January 4, 2011, sparked what was later known as the Arab Spring, a revolution that toppled governments. 

Michael Kibet

The 26, a graduate of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, also died by his own hand in June this year after searching but failing to secure a job. Kibet graduated with a first-class honours degree in ICT and Telecommunication.

In February this year, Dr Fred Muoki Wambua from Machakos County took his life after unsuccessfully struggling to secure a job. His death brought the number of unemployed medics who took their lives out of frustration to seven in a span of two years.

An estimated 4,000 doctors are unemployed despite public hospitals not having enough doctors to meet the World Bank’s doctor-patient ratio of 1:1000 according to the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentist Union.

It gets worse with engineering courses. Estimates put unemployed engineering graduates at a staggering 97 percent of those who have qualified. The Engineers Board of Kenya says it has 15,000 registered engineers, 30,000 unregistered engineers, and only 2,000 professional engineers against a demand of 20, 000, ostensibly because Kenya doesn’t have enough industries to accommodate engineers.

With the younger demography aged 35 years and below forming 80 percent of Kenya’s 50 million plus population, educated youth in Kenya bear much of the pain. Recent data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that the number of jobless Kenyans grew to 2.97 million in the last quarter of 2022.

Millions of job-hunting graduates feel betrayed by the government’s inability to create enough jobs. Rampant corruption within the government and political patronage has resulted in certain communities hogging jobs in government. For many, this is painful considering the heavy economic burden of financing university education for families from humble backgrounds.

Celestine Chepkazi

The case of Celestine Chepkazi, a Meru University student who, two years ago, was featured in the news making bricks to raise her university fees captures the extent to which some individuals and families sacrifice to get a university education in the hope it will open doors of opportunity and change their fortunes. Chepkazi endured ridicule in her home village in Kebelem, Nandi County for venturing into a field the community believes is a preserve of men.

Tales abound in which family property, including tracts of land, commercial buildings, and livestock were sold to raise university fees in the belief that it is an investment that will pay dividends. For many families, however, that has not been the case as they find themselves getting deeper into penury after disposing of their valuables.

The Senate Committee on National Cohesion, Equal Opportunities, and Regional Integration recently called out the skewed recruitment exercise of Revenue Service Assistants at the Kenya Revenue Authority that favoured only two ethnic communities.

Tribalism and corruption

Out of the 1,061 positions advertised, Kalenjin and the Kikuyu ethnic communities took 788 slots, representing 57 percent of the total. That violated the 33.3 percent threshold set by National Cohesion and Integration Act 2008 for any Kenyan community to hold jobs in a public institution.

While opportunities for employment remain at an all-time low, universities and colleges continue to pump at least 50,000 graduates into the job market every year.

A 2018 study by the European Journal of Social Sciences on the causes of unemployment among university graduates (case study Garissa) concludes that: “Causes of unemployment including corruption, nepotism and favoritism should be discouraged and proper mechanisms put in place. Knee-jerk reactions will not help in solving a problem of such magnitude. If a lasting solution is not found on these issues, the problem of unemployment in Kenya will never be won.”

Corruption in Kenya is endemic, and even those with a thirst for education find themselves victims. The Eldoret saga in which students were conned out of about Sh 1 billion for non-existent scholarships to Finland is a case in point.

When US President Barack Obama paid a visit to Kenya in 2015, he pointed out that the country loses 250,000 jobs every year due to corruption. In 2021, President Uhuru Kenyata shocked the nation when he said the government lost Sh2 billion daily to corruption. It is left to imagine how many people such money could pay.