Kenyan unemployed Youths under the umbrella of Embrace Youth Movement have threatened to boycott the census exercise if they are not given the temporary jobs.
Speaking to Hot News, the chairman of Embrace Youth, Saidi Hashi said the census will be a “sham” if the youths are not involved.
He said some of the youths have said that they won’t be “counted by old people” and will work to sabotage the exercise.
Hashi said several young unemployed people have complained that they fear losing out on the census jobs because old people and some civil servants are being favored.
The Census exercise will be carried out on the nights of 24th/25th August 2019. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) 2019, the census jobs are officially open and one can apply by visiting the KNBS website.
KNBS through the Ministry of State for Planning, National Development, and Vision 2030 said it is embarking on the 2019 census to determine the national population under the Statistics Act of 2006.
KNBS said the Kenyan Census is one of the most intensive state jobs that require a lot of human resources to do the counting.
KNBS is recruiting 2,700 ICT supervisors to be distributed in all the counties. They will work for 30 days.
It’s also recruiting 27,000 Census Content Supervisors to work for 23 days.
Also to be recruited are 135, 000 Census Enumerators who will work for 16 days.
Hashi said most of the unemployed Kenyan youths have all the requirements needed for the census jobs.
The highest qualification required for one to be an ICT supervisor is a diploma in Information Technology.
“The Government must make it mandatory that temporary jobs that come up in government must be given to the unemployed youths. This is the only way to empower the youth,” Hashi said.
Nairobi Youth leader Samuel Mundia added that census jobs are an opportunity that comes ones in a while and should be meant for young people who are unemployed.
“It’s very sad to see young people complaining that the administrators are the ones being favored. The jobs should be reserved for young people who are unemployed. Let us give these people a chance to work and get experience,” Mundia said.