This archive report was first published on 23 November 2019.
Kenya's Best and Worst Paying Jobs Revealed ¶
According to official data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), released on November 23, 2019, international non-governmental organisations and the financial services sector have the highest paying jobs in Kenya's formal employment market.
These sectors have a high concentration of top earners, with a fifth of employees in the top two sectors earning more than Sh100,000 per month. In contrast, dominant sectors such as agriculture, transport, manufacturing, and real estate paid the least, with agriculture's share of the 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. 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. The industry had no worker earning less than Sh15,000 per month, with banks and insurers hiring more technology-savvy managers to spearhead their automation processes.
Arts and entertainment sector was third, with 550 or 7.5 percent of its 7,243 employees in the top most income bracket. The lowest-paid staff in the industry earned the equivalent of Sh10,000 per month.
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.
