More men losing jobs in COVID-19 enforced layoffs

More men than women have lost jobs under the current COVID-19 strife in the country, a new survey shows.

The new findings contained in the second wave of the COVID-19 impact by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows the percentage of males in labour force participation fell to 54.1 percent in May from 65.3 percent in in April.

The high number of layoffs affecting men is largely attributable to the gender’s high participation in formal jobs.

This is as most female find themselves outside the labour force in addition to having a higher rate of self-employed individuals.

“About five in ten 51.5 females were working employers and own-account workers compared to 45.9 percent of males. Approximately, 28 percent females and 41 percent males were paid employees.

The high prevalence of employed male workers has meant the gender has been largely struck by ensuing employee layoffs in the country.

While, the survey did not include wholesome unemployment statistics, 61.9 percent of Kenyans not at work linked their current status to COVID-19 pandemic to sight stay at home orders and the cessation of movement.

Temporary business closures and work slack were attributed as additional reasons from Kenyans absence at places of work.

Expectations on employment however eased in May as only seven out of 10 workers reported doubts on the return to work in comparison to nine out of 10 employees in April.

Further, the difference in workers reported an improvement in available work hours as employees across industries reporting to have lost an average 12 hours of work in a week in comparison to 13 hours in April.

Kenyans continued to seek out coping mechanisms to address the arising financial distresses including cuts to spending on disposable goods and services and taking out loans from friends, banks and digital loan applications.

18.4 percent of Kenyans reported to have received remittances from family and friends with female headed households’ seeing the larger share of the monies.

80.2 percent of the respondents however noted that the amount of remittances had reduced.

According to the most recent labour data from KNBS covering the period between January and March this year, an estimated 287,481 Kenyans lost their jobs.

This number is expected to rise further when the statistics office published its next quarterly labour report at the end of August.