State House spokesperson Kanze Dena Mararo says last year the government created 840, 000 Jobs

In a statement sent to newsrooms, Kanze explained that this year the government is looking forward to increase the number to accommodate more youths.

“Last year, the Government created more than 840,000 new jobs (Economic Survey 2019, p. 39). That’s a lot of new jobs, especially coming after an election year when, as we all know, the economy tends to slow down somehow. This year, we expect to do even better. The long and short of it is that the voices of despair are simply wrong: there are jobs in this economy, and we have every reason to expect even more to be created when we review the full numbers for 2019” reads part of the statement.

State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena Mararo (State House/Instagram) Pulse Live Kenya

New jobs programme

Kanze also mentioned that the government will be launching a new jobs programme in conjunction with MasterCard.

"There is a new jobs programme to be launched on Thursday, in conjunction with MasterCard. The President has been working on this since last year, when he met MasterCard’s leadership on the side-lines of the United Nations General Assembly. He has since been in regular contact with them, in preparation for the event this Thursday, to which he looks forward to. I can’t say much about it now; what I can say is that he will launch a striking new programme for jobs," the State House spokesperson stated.

Unemployment rate in Kenya

The statement comes at a time a survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that seven million Kenyans are unemployed.

State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena Mararo (State House/Instagram) Pulse Live Kenya

Out of these, 1.4 million have been desperately looking for work. The rest have given up on job hunting, with some opting to go back for further studies.

The survey was released in March last year and it paints a grim picture of the country’s unemployment levels, while shattering the 40 per cent unemployment rate myth.

According to the survey, up to 19.5 million Kenyans are active in the labour force, majority of them in low-cadre, poor-paying jobs. In 2016, there were about 25 million Kenyans in the working-age bracket of between 15 and 64 years.