Kenyans spend only four and a half hours a day on economically productive pursuits, costing the economy billions of shillings in lost man-hours each year.
According to the Kenya Time Use Report 2021, which was generated from a Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) survey, the active work force spends an additional 16 hours of the day on non-productive activities, denying many households the opportunity to improve their financial health.
According to the poll, Kenyans spent 375 minutes a day, or up to four and a half hours per day, on income-generating activities, with men spending 352.6 minutes on average compared to women at 200.9 minutes.
This reflects the economy’s struggle to create jobs, particularly low-wage jobs.
The poll, which was performed across 24,000 households and announced its findings on Wednesday, also discovered that 941.8 minutes per day (16 hours) were spent on non-productive activities.
SNA productive activities are defined by the KNBS as the production of goods and services meant for individuals other than the producers and performed by hired domestic staff, whereas SNA non-productive activities are domestic and personal services produced and consumed inside the same home.
SNA is the internationally accepted framework for estimating a country’s gross domestic output.
Kenya’s economy has struggled to develop jobs to absorb thousands of college and university graduates each year, pushing them to work in the informal sector while others abandon their job search entirely.
According to official data, 2.97 million Kenyans were unemployed in December of last year, a 2.94 percent increase from 2.89 million three months earlier.
Youth aged 20 to 29 have been the hardest hit by the unemployment problem, accounting for 1.54 million of Kenyans out of work as of December last year.
