PRESS STATEMENT – As you are aware the State Department of Labour is one of the implementing agencies of Kenya Youth Employment and Opportunities Project (KYEOP). The SDL is implementing Component 3- which aims at ‘Improving Labour Market Information’. To enable informed decisions pertaining to the labour market by all stakeholders.
This Component responds to the problem of obtaining timely information about labor demand and supply, as well as career prospects in Kenya. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics(KNBS), the informal sector is currently generating most of the employment opportunities in the economy at over 80 per cent of the total job opening.
The Informal Sector Skills and Occupations Survey (ISSOS) is being undertaken to obtain data about the profile of skills and occupations prevalent in the informal sector. This information is aimed at assisting the project achieve its objective of improving employment opportunities for the targeted youth in the short term and to provide data that can career paths and also inform policy making in the long term.
As you all know, today we are now embarking on the final and critical phase which is data collection. This has been preceded by several preparatory activities that took place from 2017 to date between State Department of Labour and The KNBS of which Listing activity you had just completed almost two months ago. The Listing exercise provided a ground on which sampled Households and Establishments to be visited after this training were drawn
Allow me congratulate you for being chosen to be part of the data collection team. This opportunity comes with responsibility and a lot of expectation from you in terms of upholding the integrity of the data. Quality data will provide quality information upon analysis and this is what we expect from your teams.
This survey is a national activity and is being carried out in all the forty seven counties. As you embark on the exercise, you and the research assistants that you will be supervising represent not only the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection but the government of Kenya at large. Your conduct during the survey is of paramount importance and should reflect the contents of Chapter Six of the Constitution of Kenya on how Public Officers should conduct themselves.
I have been fully briefed on the instruments of the survey on which you will be collecting data which are:-
- The Household member listing form;
- Household business listing form;
- Enterprise Questionnaire; and
- Employee Questionnaire
I take note of the challenges of an exercise of this scale but I have the confidence that to have been chosen and been involved to this point in the life of the activity, you can measure up to these challenges and will be able to deliver.
Last but not least, I wish to thank the KNBS especially members of the technical design team for their continued support during the design and implementation of the Survey.
Finally, may I take this opportunity to officially kick start the exercise.
