•The Government Spokesperson Cyrus Oguna said the move was to ensure that laws are upheld.
•Oguna said that close to 1.2 million Kenyan youth join the labour market every year, some with skills and other without any skill.
Image: COURTESY
The ministry of labour has resolved to champion for amendment of the labour and employment laws by signing an MoU with Cotu and the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE).
The move is to enable the ministry to align the laws to the new working realities, and forms of work.
In a statement on Thursday, the Government Spokesperson Cyrus Oguna lauded the move saying it was meant to ensure that laws are upheld.
“This is because we are already in the future of work and our laws must speak to this new reality,” Oguna said.
“At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ministry of labour has signed an MOU with the social partners, Central Organization of Trade Unions in Kenya (COTU-K) and the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) which is the national umbrella body for employers and the most representative employers' organization in Kenya.”
The Spokesperson said the main focus of this MoU was to protect existing formal sector jobs and employer organizations from collapse.
Further, he said one of the agreements in the MoU was allowing employees to work from home, take unpaid leave, and use flexible working hours arrangements.
“The Government and stakeholders in the ICT sector must endeavour to create an environment that supports increased productivity of organizations by upgrading the skills of informal business owners and workers,” Oguna said.
Further, Oguna said to address the risk of creating a digital divide, the ministry of labour through the National Industrial Training Authority, has started incorporating ICT training in its trade test hoping that in future, anyone graduating from National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) will have ICT skills.
“As a start, this year alone, 1,666 trainees at artisan grade III, grade II and grade I, have been assessed and passed in ICT skills. Our target is for all the 100,000 trainees who graduate from NITA annually to also have ICT skills,” Oguna added.
Oguna said that close to 1.2 million Kenyan youth join the labour market every year, some with skills and others without any skills.
"Prior to the emergence of the Covid -19 pandemic, our economy was only able to create 800 thousand jobs in both formal and informal sectors out of which the informal sector accounted for 83 per cent of all jobs created," Oguna said.
"Notably, majority of these workers in the informal sector have low skills and their uptake of ICT technologies is also very low."