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{
    "id": 1106288,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1106288/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 177,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Tigania West, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. John Mutunga",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13495,
        "legal_name": "John Kanyuithia Mutunga",
        "slug": "john-kanyuithia-mutunga"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to also add my voice particularly to this very important Bill. Hon. Keter, who is the chairman of the Youthful Parliamentary Group, has made a major move to support his own category of members. There are very many youths who are not employed in this country. The reason is that we are not creating jobs in Kenya. In better planned economies, we train with specific possibilities in mind and we do planning. The unemployment rate for Kenya is 2.98 per cent, having increased by 0.38 per cent. If you look back to those other years when the unemployment rate was decreasing prior to 2019/2020 pandemic, the decreases were marginal. That implies that we have not been really reducing the unemployment rate at a rate at which we are discharging youth into the market. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the timing for training and career development should match the timing for availability of jobs. What we are doing in this country is producing very educated Kenyans and throwing them into the job market. As many other Members have said, their main occupation becomes job seeking. Therefore, we should ask ourselves what we have in our hands to help the youth of this country. Being a country with sufficient skilled labour which is not utilised, do we not think it is time that we changed into a labour intensive economy where every employer, institution or formation that offers employment is compelled to increase the number of people they can engage and reduce the levels of mechanisation? I may sound illogical in the 21st Century proposing that we reduce mechanisation, but we have a problem. The problem is that we have Kenyans who are not employed and who cannot support themselves in anything. We have Kenyans who leave school and when they leave universities and colleges, they do not have any mechanisms of supporting themselves. We have Kenyans who have gone through school under difficult circumstances. They used the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) to get loans, the NG-CDF bursaries, harambees and borrowed money from individuals; and then when they get to the employable stage where they are already qualified, they have no opportunity for employment. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}