Hope for the jobless as Kenya signs labour migration pact with Germany

President William Ruto and Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz, witnessing the sign of declaration on Climate Development Partnership, in Sharma El-Sheikh, Egypt. [PCS]

The non-quota-based migration and mobility agreement between Kenya and Germany is expected to enhance talent matching and labour market strategy between the two countries, the government says.

In what Kenya has described as the first of its kind, the agreement will provide a framework for cooperation and information exchange on labour mobility, apprenticeship, student training, labour market needs, employment and welfare of workers, readmission and return.

“This innovative agreement seeks to create a dynamic framework for immigration by aligning the skills and talents of Kenyan professionals with the labour market needs of employers in Germany,” the Department of Diaspora Affairs said in a statement.

Similarly, unlike the traditional quota based bilateral labour agreements, the department says the new one focusses on creating a framework for matching Kenyan talent to German labour market needs.

Diaspora Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Kathure also said the Comprehensive Migration and Mobility partnership agreement the country has signed with the Germans outlines how the two countries intend to work together as far as job opportunities within Germany is concerned.

It outlines how Kenyans will access those opportunities through labour migration as well as agreement on trade.

“The agreement has been negotiated over the last one year and the signing of that agreement will allow Kenyans to have access to this market to use their talent and expand it and they can work in various fields, including health care, manufacturing and service industry among others,” said Kathure, in an explainer posted on the department’s X platform.

Kathure said Kenya is the first country outside of Europe to have such an agreement, noting that Germany has one other with Georgia.

The PS said the agreement has structures with access to job opportunities, protection of employee welfare and other forms of cooperation, accreditation and recognition of skills and of certificates between the two countries.

“It is a huge opportunity that opens up the Kenyan talent in this part of the global labour market and what the government has done is to put in place a framework that facilitates, protects and creates a policy and regulates that space of labour migration,” she explained.

The department has indicated that the Kenyan diaspora, now approximately 4 million people, plays a crucial role in international economy, with their remittances surpassing the foreign exchange earnings from key sectors like tea, coffee, tourism and horticulture.

“This agreement with Germany is part of a broader strategy by Kenya to establish strategic partnerships and agreements focused on diaspora engagement and labour externalisation. Germany now joins a growing list of countries with which Kenya has such strategic collaborations,” the statement indicated.

The implementation phase is expected to begin as Kenya anticipates that the new framework with stronger people-to-people connections between the two countries will enhance mutual understanding and cooperation.

Kathure also said a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to create a framework of outsourcing remotely certain functions of work to talent in Kenya.

This, she said, means that Kenyans will have access to job opportunities within Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and work remotely from Kenya.

“So it is the best of both worlds. They get to work for fantastic employers in Germany and also work from home without having to migrate,” she said.

According to Kathure, the government’s approach to dealing with unemployment is three pronged: at home, online and in the diaspora.

She said the MoU and agreement signed are critical and marks an entry into a new era not just in Kenya’s cooperation with Germany but also for talent that would like to venture in that market.

On Sunday, President William Ruto indicated that the first recruitment of young people to go and work in Germany is expected on September 27, saying that his dream is being realised progressively.

“We want this arrangement to be corruption free, seamless and eventually benefits the people we are targeting. In a labour market where we are injecting a million young people every year. We have other interventions we are using to create jobs but cannot catch up with the labour market numbers we are working with,” Ruto explained.