Technology companies, the public service and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advertised the most new jobs in Kenya during the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report from Brighter Monday has revealed.
The careers platform published The Impact of COVID-19 Jobs Report on Wednesday, December 16. It explores job market trends in the country and offers forecasts.
Government agencies accounted for 15 per cent of employment notices in the seven months to August, retaining its place as the biggest employer.
Companies in the information, communications and technology (ICT) sector benefitted from the ramifications of the pandemic on life. They accounted for 14.1 per cent of new job opportunities.
Working and learning from home has led to an uptick in demand for IT services. The same is reflected in the surge witnessed globally in time spent on social media and streaming platforms such as Netflix, Twitter and Facebook.
Enterprise software and cloud-based collaboration platforms for business have been among the hottest industries of the year.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), hit by budget cuts and reduced donor flows, accounted for 10.9 per cent of new employment notices.
Warehousing and logistics firms accounted for 7.1 per cent of the new opportunities.
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“From our survey, we saw that there are some jobs that due to the Covid-19 some have taken a back seat while demand for others increased mainly for IT. This is mainly because as companies opted for the work from home, then demand IT services grew.
“As for the government, it has been the biggest employer and we saw this trend remain un-affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.” noted Brighter Monday CEO Emmanuel Mutuma.
Several sectors saw their share of new employment notices reduce significantly compared to the same period last year.
They include education, banking and healthcare. All three industries were heavily impacted by the pandemic.
Banks were forced to restructure loans worth billions of shillings even as Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) rose on layoffs and business disruptions.
Firms in hospitality and media posted no employment notices in the period under survey, underlining the dire impact of the pandemic on the sectors.
Several media houses, hotels and entertainment joints resorted to layoffs and other cost cutting measures as revenues dipped during the pandemic.
For media houses, advertising revenue has been dwindling with firms struggling. The hospitality sector has witnessed low occupancy rates, and operations adversely affected by restrictions such as the curfew.
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