Treasury Cabinet Secretary CS Ukur Yatani on Tuesday released the 2020 Economic Survey, showing Kenya created a total of 843,000 new jobs in 2019.
This marks a marginal increase compared to 840,000 new jobs created in 2018. In 2017, 897,000 jobs were created and in 2016, 832,900 new jobs were up for grabs.
The survey indicates that Kenya’s economic growth fell from 6.3 percent in 2018 to 5.4 percent last year.
The number of people engaged in the modern and informal sectors rose from 17.3 million in 2018 to 18.1 million in 2019.
Employment in the modern sector grew by 2.4% (67,800 jobs) in 2019 compared to 2.8 percent in 2018. While the informal sector created 767,900 new jobs in 2019 compared to 744,100 new jobs in 2018.
CS Ukur Yatani said the annual inflation rose from 4.7 percent in 2018 to 5.2 percent in 2019. The increase was mainly due to less favourable weather conditions in the first half of 2019.
“It’s important to note that Prudent macroeconomic policies and stable Kenya shilling against the major currencies especially the US dollar helped in containing the inflation,” the CS said.
The National Treasury has also revised its 2020 economic growth estimate to a range of between 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent. This is due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our GDP projection for the year is 2.5 percent however if the pandemic persists we see growth contracting further to 1.8 percent,” Yatani said.
The CS said the government has since initiated a study to assess the impact of the pandemic on the economy with the survey set for launch in May.
“The report is meant to establish the impact of the pandemic on both the household level of the economy and the general economy,” CS Yatani said.
