IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science ( IOSR-JHSS ) Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Ser . 7 ( March . 2021 ) 44-50 e-ISSN : 2279-0837 , p-ISSN : 2279-0845 . www . iosrjournals . org skills strengthening . Data for these studies were collected between March 2018 and February 2019 ,
and each of these studies has individual reports . This report presents a synthesis of the key findings generated by the three studies , targeting mostly academic and policy audiences . The report first explains the methodologies utilized by the studies , and moves on to present the results along 8 key themes : Demographic characteristics of the studies youth , Key challenges faced by youth , Characteristics linked to youth unemployment , Access to job information , Capabilities for work and life , Access to TVET opportunities , Prospects for Whole Youth Development in TVET , and An inferential exploration of the factors linking access to TVET information and access to job opportunities . The report then signs off with five major conclusions , drawing policy and research implications upon each conclusion .
Furthermore , in Kenya , around one million youth enter the job market every year , most of them unskilled fresh from secondary school , dropouts of the schooling system , and even graduates of Universities and technical training institutions who either are deficient in their area of training or end up doing jobs not aligned to what they trained for . On the other hand , employers have expressed dissatisfaction with the graduates of the training system , citing the ‘ double costing crisis ’ government taxes industry to raise money for education and training ; industry invests again to retrain graduates because they lack the skills demanded by the job tasks .
Structure of the Kenyan Economy From the Kenyan macroeconomic level , the labor demand and supply are influenced by education and skills levels , migration , age of the population , as well as domestic and international market dynamics which in turn affects Gross Domestic Product ( GDP ) growth , labor force participation rates as well as unemployment levels . The Kenyan labour market is composed of three main industries ; production , manufacturing , and service industries . The service industry is the largest contributor to Kenya ’ s GDP accounting for 42.5 % of the annual GDP ; Production at 37 %; while the manufacturing sector accounted for 15.6 % of the country ’ s GDP ( KNBS , 2019a ).
Problem Statement Youth unemployment is a major concern in Kenya with projections standing at 55 %. Whilst the economy is only able to generate 800,000 jobs against an estimated 1 million young people joining the labor market every year , statistics show that a majority of Kenya ’ s workforce is employed in the informal economy ( about 12 million ), with an estimated 1.3 million employed in the formal sector ( USAID , 2014 ). 32 % of the unemployed youth have post-secondary education whereas only one in every two graduates is employed ( Awiti & Scott , 2016 ). This indicates that even with a high level of education among the youth , unemployment remains a crisis in the country . Studies carried out across the globe reveal that soft / behavioral skills are critical to gaining employment .