Many Kenyan graduates have had a rough time to negotiate for salaries especially in their first jobs.
According to the data released by Data Fintech, a consumer data broker, in partnership with Brighter Monday, a job search site, professional service sector peaked with 71.37 per cent job listings.
Wholesale and retail trade jobs came second at 4.79 per cent while transport and storage industry jobs stood at 4.35 per cent.
According to the data collected between January 2012 and late December 2016, involving 14,896 employers, over 50 per cent of jobs in Kenya’s five main cities - Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Eldoret and Nakuru - pay below Sh22,500.
Naturally the best paid jobs are located in Nairobi with almost 10 per cent of the jobs advertised paying more than Sh100,000.
Outside the capital Nairobi, fastest growing industrial and agricultural hot spots including Eldoret and Nakuru have good job opportunities with decent pay with 13 per cent and 11 per cent respectively of jobs paying over Sh97,500.
Lakeside Kisumu city - known for fishing leads the pack of poorly paid workers with a whopping 50 per cent of workers in the town earning a merger Sh7,500 per month. Kisumu was worst hit by the post election violence in the 2007/2008 general elections, prompting investors to hung boots on their businesses.
A huge population is, however, concentrated at the salary range of Sh22,500 bracket, many employers citing inadequate skills.
Data collected by Data Fintech are from Brighter Monday online marketplace. There were 45,302 job listings and 6,228,118 job applications during the period of data collection.