Youth & Employment

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:08:10 +0100

Every young person in the world who is considered as a youth after attaining the age of Sixteen (16) years and above, should and must be accorded the opportunity to exercise his/her rights to lead a decent and legal livelihood. This can only be achieved through gainful employment or self-employment in order for him/her to positively engage in self development.
The issue of unemployment has been talked about and discussed ceaselessly around the world yet with each passing day, more and more youths are rendered unemployed by their respective governments while their leaders engage in needless politicking.
This issue of unemployment has in turn made the whole world totally unsafe as youths as young as 7 years old have turned into crime, the only easiest way (according to them) to earn a living, in total disregard of the consequences both to themselves and to their victims.
Rates of unemployment even in the so called first world/developed countries have hit the skies in the recent months with redundancies ever on the increase, affecting mostly the very productive group which is the youths.

In Kenya, for example, if the violence and criminal activities that proceeded the elections of December 2007 are to be our gauge, then I declare that its time that the elected servants and employees of the people STOPPED their needless and self centered politicking and faced this issue of unemployment urgently and with all resources in the country. Failure to which, they too shall fall victims of the aftermath.

As they campaigned prior to the 2007 elections, each individual campaigner had youth employment claimed as their main agenda. They rallied the youths and promised to ensure that immediately after the elections were over, the process of job creation and employment would be their first priority. Now today that has taken the back seat and instead, they are already campaigning for the next elections to be held in 2012, four years YET to come.

The unemployment rate in Kenya has risen to approximately 60% in 2008 as compared to 40% in 2001, an increase of approximately 3% per year.

With a population of approximately 38 million (2008 est.),
out of which 60% is in the age bracket of 15-35 years (youths=22.8 million),
a population growth rate of 2.8% p/a,
a fertility rate of 4.7 children per woman,
a gender ratio of reproductive women to men at 3:1,
a national economic GDP per capita income of $1,700 (2007 est.) with an inflation rate of 9.8% p/a and
a population of 65% (2008 est.) living below the poverty line (currently gauged at $1/day), the question that lingers in the mind of any knowledgeable person is, where is Kenya and indeed the world headed at this rate?

Aren't we awaiting another more disastrous Hiroshima or even 9/11, courtesy of our youths?

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Youth & Employment