Youth Unemployment among Graduates of Tertiary Institutions in Kenya

The Case of Africa Inland Church Jericho

Abstract

Millions of the youth world over remains unemployed; furthermore, the phenomenon is on the increase. For instance, the projections by countries’ policy makers say youth unemployment is likely to rise by 4 million globally each year. What is more complicated to the policy makers is the high rate of youth unemployment among college graduates. Therefore, graduate unemployment has posed a challenging and complex problem to the leaders, educationists and policy makers at all levels. Even for the few graduates who have managed to secure jobs there is some disquiet among the employers concerning skills deficiency among the recently graduated ones. The issues mentioned by the job market analysts are mismatch and skills oversupply in the market. Based on the simple economic laws of demand and supply, it is catastrophic to over supply labour because a significant number will remain unemployed. Moreover, there is an increment of colleges of higher education globally and each year these colleges are belching out thousands of graduates who throng to the job market. However, more graduates are coming out possessing skills that are seemingly not in demand in the job market. Therefore, a huge gap exists between the skills demanded by the employers, and the skills possessed by the graduates, thus, only those graduates possessing the relevant skills are employable. This paper attempted to investigate tackling of unemployment among college graduates amongst the youth in Kenya; it focused on the youth in Africa Inland Jericho. The objectives of the study were to establish the causes of unemployment among the youth, determine how much the youth know about the skill-driven courses and to demonstrate the programmes that are likely to lead to higher rate of employment. This was a descriptive study where the researcher collected data from 50 respondents sampled from a population of 1,500 church going youths in A.I.C Jericho. The findings showed that 12.5% TVET diploma graduates were unemployed; 93.75 % non-TVET diploma graduates were unemployed, while 80% degree graduates were unemployed. Therefore, the research concluded that lack of skill-driven education among the youth was the greatest cause of unemployment. The study recommended that more emphasis on pursuing skill-based education; more awareness to popularize TVET education because a few of the youth were aware of TVET.