File | NATION Kenyans evacuated from Libya arrive at JKIA in Nairobi last month. The flight also brought Ugandan, Burundian, Zimbabwean and Rwandese evacuees.
The government receives an average of 15 distress calls per day on employment-related disputes from Kenyans abroad.
And this suffering by Kenyans at the hands of rogue employers and employment agencies in foreign lands has spurred the government into action.
The Ministry of Labour has set up a labour migration unit to protect the increasing number of Kenyans travelling, working or living abroad.
The unit, established with the support of the International Organisation for Migration and based at Labour ministry headquarters, will act as a one-stop shop where information will be processed and enquiries on labour migration addressed.
Labour ministry permanent secretary Beatrice Kituyi said all international employers and employment agencies will now have be registered and vetted.
They will also be required to submit regular returns with details of the jobs they were offering, the employers they were recruiting for, location, terms of services and remuneration.
At the same time, Ms Kituyi said job-seekers were encouraged to register with employment bureaus nearest to them.
“Employers with vacant positions will also register, detailing the nature of the jobs, the skills required and the wages being offered,” she said.
In addition, they will be required to register with the umbrella body — the Kenya Association of Private Employers Agencies.
The development comes at a time when there have been rising cases of unsuspecting job-seekers being conned of huge sums of money by bogus employment agencies advertising non-existent jobs.
“This happens because of lack of information about the jobs on offer,” Ms Kituyi said.
It is hoped that the unit will go a long way in providing information on of labour migration, giving the government an opportunity to serve better those taking up international jobs.
Registration and submission of returns by the agencies will be done online “to promote openness and integrity of employment and recruitment agencies, while government cracks down on rogue ones.”
The unit has a skills inventory section for collecting data and providing labour market information and will be critical in advising the government on employment trends and emerging skills required internationally.
According to a report released by the Labour ministry this week, the lack of employment opportunities and unattractive wage levels are among the factors that have led to high levels of migration from Kenya.
“The focus is on destination countries where migrants will not experience language barriers, with the English-speaking United Kingdom and United States, and Swahili-speaking Tanzania topping the list of the destination countries,” the report said.
A significant proportion of individuals migrating from Kenya are skilled professionals in search of better opportunities and higher salaries.
The World Bank estimates the rate of emigration at 26 per cent for tertiary educated people. Physicians (51 per cent — in fact physicians trained in Kenya thought to be living abroad) and nurses (8 per cent) are particularly affected.
Labour migration from Kenya is not the preserve of highly-skilled workers as a significant number of semi-skilled Kenyans also migrate overseas in search of greener pastures.
“Legal migration of lowly-skilled Kenyans to developed countries is often restricted and many, therefore, opt for the irregular route,” the report said.
The country also sends many students abroad for higher education, particularly to the US and UK. “While some of these students return to Kenya upon graduation, others take up employment and eventually settle in their host countries,” it says.
The report further noted that about 80 per cent of Kenyans living in the UK want to return to Kenya permanently.
Interestingly, 74 per cent of Kenyans with British citizenship also want to come back permanently, it adds.
In fact, the report says those with British citizenship “do not see it as an avenue for staying permanently in Britain but as a tool to continue going there temporarily after returning permanently to Kenya.”
Respondents cited securing jobs relevant to their skills, the high cost of living and the stress associated with living in London as difficulties they encountered.
The study Harnessing the Development Potential of Kenyans Living in the UK was carried out in October last year to widen the involvement of Kenyans living in the Diaspora in national development efforts.
Government officials yesterday said the study focused on the United Kingdom because it was the leading country in the world where a majority of Kenyans preferred to go in search of better opportunities and higher salaries.
Tanzania, the United States, Uganda, Canada and Germany, in that order, are the other top destinations where Kenyans flock in search of fortune, better health and education for themselves and their children.
It also emerged in the report that Kenyans in the Diaspora are now contributing about seven per cent of the gross domestic product in the form of remittances.
This is only the amount captured through formal channels of remitting money, implying that the figure could be much higher.
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