This archive report was first published on 22 November 2019.
Kenya's formal employment market has revealed a stark contrast in salaries, with international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the financial services sector offering the highest paying jobs, while agriculture and transport sectors pay the least.
According to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), a fifth of employees in the top two sectors, namely international NGOs and the financial services sector, earn more than Sh100,000 per month, making them the highest concentration of top earners.
On the other hand, dominant sectors such as agriculture, transport, manufacturing, and real estate pay the least, with agriculture's share of top earners being a measly 0.9 percent.
The foreign-backed NGOs employed a total of 1,345 staff, with 270 of them earning more than Sh100,000 monthly, making the agencies a magnet for those seeking or wanting to change jobs.
These organisations had no employees earning less than Sh20,000 per month, while 60 percent or 202,311 employees in the agriculture sector earned less than Sh25,000.
The high compensation among the institutions is seen as arising from the fact that they are well-funded and rely heavily on highly skilled professionals, including ambassadors, commercial attaches, senior executives, consultants, and programme officers.
The financial services sector was second, with 11,598 employees or 15.3 percent of its 75,621 workforce earning above Sh100,000, with no worker earning less than Sh15,000 per month.
The industry has focused on reducing routine roles like clerical jobs in favour of strategic jobs headed by highly paid professionals, including branch managers, analysts, investment officers, senior managers, and chief executives.
Arts and entertainment sector was third, with 550 or 7.5 percent of its 7,243 employees in the top most income bracket, with the lowest-paid staff in the industry earning the equivalent of Sh10,000 per month.
The KNBS data also revealed the industries with the lowest remuneration, with mining and household jobs having no single employee earning more than Sh100,000 based on income tax filings with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
The finding is an indication that the sectors rely heavily on low-skilled labourers, with most households paying their employees, including gardeners, security guards, and cooks, below the minimum wage that ranges from Sh13,000 to Sh15,000 per month.
While the government sets the minimum wage for these workers, compliance among employers is limited to wealthy households.
The agricultural sector, which is the largest formal employer, has the smallest share of workers earning more than Sh100,000 per month, with 2,931 staff in the top income band, representing 0.87 percent of its 336,607 workforce.
Transport had a slightly higher concentration of top earners, counting 1,578 staff who represented 1.74 percent of its 90,647 workforce.
The data sheds light on the growing income inequality in the country, with the biggest employers offering only a living wage to most of their workers.
The highest-paying jobs, meanwhile, are few and concentrated in the services sector in Nairobi and other major cities like Mombasa and Kisumu.
Manufacturing, for instance, employs 307,592 people and is second only to agriculture in size, but has only 6,117 workers or 1.9 percent of its workforce in the top income bracket.
As a whole, the highest-earning employees add up to 79,983 and represent only 2.89 percent of the entire formal sector workers, with nearly three quarters or 74.58 percent of formal sector workers earning below Sh50,000, reflecting the income inequality and the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
