Since the
first case of COVID-19 was reported in the country, thousands of Kenyans have
been rendered jobless as companies face tough financial times.
The number
of youth country-wide looking for jobs was shown yesterday in Eldoret after
over 500 youths showed up for 20 supermarket job openings.
Despite the
government's efforts to help the jobless youth through the Kazi Mtaani
initiative, thousands of Kenyans are willing to take odd jobs to make ends
meet.
Speaking to
KTN News, one of the applicants lauded the government for creating jobs through
Kazi Mtaani but insisted that more youth are still jobless judging by the
turnout for the supermarket positions.
Another
applicant said he studied computer science and information technology, but he
is yet to get a job.
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One of the
management staff said she was shocked by the high turn-up, especially since
they only needed to hire 20 people.
"Today
(July 22), we are conducting interviews, as you can see, but what has shocked
us is that the turn-up is so high that we did not expect around 500 youths.
"This
is really heartbreaking, that so many youths are unemployed and most of them
are saying they lost their jobs during this COVID situation. It is really
unfortunate because out of 500 people, we only need 20. We cannot
over-staff," said the employer.
