Measures to contain unemployment problems in Kenya

The measures appropriate as remedies for unemployment will clearly depend on the type and cause of the unemployment. Such measures take the form of demand side (demand management) and supply side policies aimed at increasing aggregate demand and the economy’s potential
rate of output respectively. Some of these measures include:

• Decentralisation of industries: Industries should be encouraged to establish in different regions of a country through enhanced provision of incentives such as tax relief, free room for expansion, security and improvement of the infrastructure. This helps reduce rural-urban migration and urban unemployment.
  Use of monetary and fiscal policies: The government can use fiscal and monetary policies (to influence activities) to create more employment opportunities by way of selective credit to those projects that have potential capacities to absorb more labour (supporting declining industries with public funds, cutting taxation etc)
• Population growth control through family planning education programmes: This will then become a long-term remedial measure to the problem of unemployment.
• Provision of more education and training facilities including retraining schemes to keep workers who want to acquire new skills to improve their mobility.
• Changing the attitude towards work i.e. eliminating the white-collar mentality and creating positive
  attitudes towards the mainstay (economic) activities such as agriculture and other technical vocational jobs.
• Moving towards greater investment in research and development …greater use of natural resources.
• Increasing information dissemination on labour market opportunities – Kenya has made some progress in this regard by making it known through the print media the existence of off-shore employment opportunities (done by the Directorate of Personnel Management (DPM)
• Assistance with family relocation to reduce structural unemployment. This is done by giving recreational facilities, schools and improving the quality of life in general in other parts of the country, and even the provision of financial assistance to cover the cost of movement and home purchase.
• Special employment assistance for teenagers many of whom leave school without having studies work-related subjects and with little or no work experience.