Statistics office: 840,000 jobs created in 2018

As the government stepped up efforts to diversify the country’s economy in 2018, leading to a 6.3% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has revealed that those efforts yielded 840,000 new jobs across various sectors.

The Economy Survey 2019 Report released on Thursday reveals that the informal sector was the biggest employer in the country accounting for 86.3% of the total employment which created 76,200 new jobs during the period under review.

KNBS’ report also reveals that employment in the public sector went up to 83,300 people in 2017 to 84,200 people in 2018.

According to the report, the private sector which accounted for 69.5% of the total employment grew by 3.0% in 2018.

“Wage employment in the modern sector increased from 269,900 people in 2017 to 276,500 people in 2018,” says KNBS Managing Director Zachary Mwangi in the report.

Further, the Economy Survey 2019 also states, “The total number of self-employed and unpaid family workers within the modern sector rose from 13,900 people in 2017 to 15,200 people in 2018.

{Read: Kenya’s economic growth hits five year high}

Wages
Conversely, overall nominal wage bill for public and private and sector rose from Ksh18.1 trillion in 2017 to Ksh20.1 trillion in 2018.

Annual nominal average earnings per person in the modern sector increased from Ksh666,241 in 2017 to Ksh716,934 in 2018.

Similarly, annual real average earnings per person increased from Ksh364,313 to Ksh376,080 over the same period.

{See also: KEBS spearheads countrywide initiative to support Jua Kali sector}

Inflation as measured by Consumer Price Index decreased from 8.0% in 2017 to 4.7% in 2018.

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