Britam Holdings received 10,000 applications for the 200 positions it advertised last year, pointing to the dire race for jobs in a high unemployment market.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm’s disclosures contained in its latest annual report, means that on average 50 people were chasing after one job.
While the company hired 200 people and rejected 9,800 applicants, its headcount grew by only 47 people to reach 1,142 from the previous year’s 1,095. This suggests that the new hires mainly replaced employees who had exited.
The 10,000 job applications for 200 positions coincided with the year in which government records showed that Kenya’s economy added the fewest jobs since the 2020 pandemic, with GDP growth slowing.
About 782,300 new jobs were created last year, down from 848,100 new hires a year earlier, according to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), which also showed the economy expanded at the slowest pace since the Covid-19 pandemic at 4.7 percent.
Financial sector firms, including banks and insurers, have been among the few creating additional full-time jobs, while many others in sectors such as manufacturing and marketing and communications have reduced their headcount.
Many firms have been shedding jobs or keeping their headcount unchanged due to the rising cost of doing business. High operating costs, coupled with sluggish demand for goods and services, have reduced companies’ appetite for more staff.
A Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) survey that captured sentiments of CEOs in key sectors such as manufacturing, financial services, agriculture and tourism showed that 23.9 percent of employers had reduced full-time jobs in the quarter ended March 2025, compared to 65.2 percent who had kept the headcount unchanged and 10.9 percent who had hired more in the preceding quarter ending December.
The CBK survey showed 16.4 percent expected to cut jobs in the second quarter ending in June 2025, compared to their headcount at the end of March this year. The majority (71.6 percent) said they would keep their staff unchanged, while just 12.1 percent said there was room to hire more.
According to the KNBS, 90 percent of jobs created in the economy last year were from the informal sector, mirroring the difficulties faced by corporate Kenya in creating quality employment for thousands of graduates leaving universities and colleges each year.
The economy created 75,000 formal jobs last year compared to 122,900 —another low since Covid-19 economic hardships when 185,800 jobs were lost in 2020.
Formal employment rose by 2.4 percent to 3.21 million last year from 3.13 million earlier as informal jobs rose faster by 4.2 percent to 17.38 million from 16.68 million in 2023. However, total employment crossed the 20-million mark for the first time to reach 20.77 million, up from 19.99 million previously.
