By Peter Nyanje
As technocrats and government official are set to meet in Nairobi next month to discuss unemployment, as East Africa is expanding its economies, attracting investment and integrating its markets, the reality is that millions of young people in the region face a persistent struggle to secure decent work.
For employers, the problem is increasingly framed as a mismatch between graduates’ skills and workplace requirements. But to young jobseekers, however, the challenge is often more fundamental: finding an employer willing to offer them a first opportunity in an economy that is not creating enough productive jobs.
Recently, we heard Tanzania Vice President, Deogratius Ndejembi hitting at the employers’ tendence of requiring experience before engaging anyone. He questioned; how can a university graduate overcome that requirement while he or she is just finished his or her studies?
The contradiction is becoming harder to ignore. Universities and colleges continue to prepare young people for professional careers, businesses complain that graduates lack practical experience, and employers frequently advertise positions requiring skills that many applicants have had limited opportunities to develop.
Meanwhile, young people compete for a relatively narrow pool of formal employment while millions more work in informal, low-paid or insecure activities.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) reported that 21.9 percent of young people in sub-Saharan Africa were not in employment, education or training in 2023, representing approximately 53 million people.
It also estimated that 71.7 percent of young adult workers aged 25 to 29 were in insecure employment that year. These figures cover sub-Saharan Africa rather than East Africa alone, but they illustrate the scale of the regional challenge.
The question confronting East African governments, businesses and educational institutions is therefore not simply how to produce more graduates, but how to build economies capable of employing them productively.
The skills gap is real, but it is only part of the problem
The issue has gained renewed attention following concerns raised by employers ahead of the third East African Employability Summit, scheduled for November 11–12, 2026, at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi.
Philip Pande, executive director of Corporate Career Academy, said employers continued to identify gaps between the skills graduates acquire in educational institutions and those demanded in the workplace.
“There is definitely a skills gap between what learning institutions are producing in terms of graduates and what industry demands,” Pande said during a media briefing in Nairobi on October 21.
He observed that some young people possess technical knowledge and creativity but struggle with teamwork, time management, collaboration and other interpersonal competencies.
The concern deserves attention. In workplaces where employees must coordinate projects, communicate with customers, meet deadlines and solve problems collectively, academic qualifications alone may not guarantee effective performance.
Yet employers’ concerns also expose a weakness in the way responsibility for employability is sometimes distributed.
Educational institutions cannot independently guarantee employment outcomes when employers have limited capacity to absorb new workers, practical training opportunities are scarce and the economy generates insufficient demand for skilled labour.
A graduate who has never been given access to an internship, workplace attachment or entry-level position may struggle to demonstrate experience precisely because no employer has provided the opportunity to acquire it.
This creates a circular problem: employers want experience before hiring, while young people need employment to gain experience.
The World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse report of October 2024 identified a related structural contradiction. Many young workers remain in low-productivity informal activities, while the limited availability of quality jobs restricts opportunities to build skills and progress economically.
The implication is that East Africa must address both sides of the labour market: the capabilities of jobseekers and the capacity of businesses to create productive employment.
Economic growth is not creating enough jobs
One of the region’s central economic challenges is the gap between growth in national output and the creation of employment opportunities capable of absorbing a rapidly expanding workforce.
Gatsby Africa’s East Africa Trends Report, published in January 2026, argues that economic growth has not translated into sufficiently broad improvements in productivity and incomes. It points to the concentration of growth in activities such as extractive industries, finance and construction, alongside relatively weak manufacturing growth and the continued dominance of informal employment.
These sectors can generate substantial economic value, but their ability to absorb large numbers of workers varies considerably.
Mining, for example, can generate export earnings and government revenue without employing as many people as labour-intensive manufacturing or some agricultural value chains. Construction creates jobs, but many may be temporary. Financial services can expand rapidly while employing a relatively small share of the workforce.
Unfortunate for Tanzania, recent data shows that manufacturing, which has potential of absorbing a lot of job seekers, is diminishing with mining taking a lead as the number one national forex income earner. No wonder that while data show that economy is improving, unemployment numbers also continue to balloon.
The ILO has warned that Africa’s youth labour force will expand substantially towards 2050, making employment creation one of the continent’s most important long-term economic challenges.
For East Africa, the policy challenge is to ensure that investment produces not only higher output but also more jobs, stronger domestic supply chains and opportunities for workers to move into higher-productivity activities.
Manufacturing, agro-processing, logistics, construction materials, tourism, digital services and renewable energy could all contribute. However, these opportunities require investment, reliable infrastructure, access to finance, predictable regulation and businesses capable of expanding beyond small-scale operations.
Without this structural transformation, even a better-trained workforce may find itself competing for too few suitable positions.
Looking at bodaboda as a solution to youth unemployment will always continue to create problems that it solves the challenges.
The informal economy hides the depth of unemployment
Official unemployment rates alone cannot fully describe the employment challenges facing young people.
In many East African economies, young people cannot afford to remain unemployed while searching indefinitely for formal jobs. They turn instead to street trading, motorcycle transport, casual construction, domestic services, small-scale farming and other informal activities.
These activities provide income and often serve essential economic functions. However, they may offer irregular earnings, limited access to social protection, weak employment security and few opportunities for professional advancement.
A young person operating a small business or undertaking casual work may therefore be classified as employed even when earnings are insufficient to meet basic needs.
This distinction matters for policymakers. Reducing the unemployment rate is not the same as expanding decent work.
The ILO’s 2024 assessment found that nearly three in four young adult workers in sub-Saharan Africa were in insecure employment. Its findings underline the need to consider job quality, not merely whether a person reports having work.
East African governments consequently need labour-market policies that help informal businesses become more productive, improve access to finance and markets, and create pathways towards formal employment.
The objective should not be to dismiss informal work, but to make it a viable starting point for enterprise growth rather than a permanent destination for people excluded from better opportunities.
Education needs to connect more closely with industry
The skills debate nevertheless points to an important reform priority: strengthening the relationship between educational institutions and employers.
Curricula need to reflect changing workplace requirements, but curriculum reform alone will not be sufficient.
Students also need opportunities to apply what they learn through internships, apprenticeships, industrial placements, supervised projects and workplace mentoring.
The ILO has emphasised the importance of technical and vocational education and training, alongside work-based learning, in preparing young Africans for changing labour markets.
Technical and vocational pathways should not be treated as inferior alternatives to university education. East African economies need technicians, electricians, mechanics, industrial operators, agricultural specialists, software developers, healthcare workers and skilled professionals across many other fields.
The more important question is whether training provides competencies that employers and productive enterprises actually need.
Businesses should participate more directly in designing training programmes, identifying emerging occupations and providing practical learning opportunities. Educational institutions, meanwhile, need to assess graduate outcomes and use feedback from employers to improve their programmes.
Governments can support this relationship through incentives for companies that provide accredited apprenticeships, partnerships between colleges and industry, and transparent information about employment outcomes.
Crucially, businesses must also recognise that employability is developed through experience. Entry-level recruitment cannot become effective if every vacancy requires several years of previous employment.
Young women face additional barriers
The employment challenge is also unequal.
The ILO estimated that three in five young people in sub-Saharan Africa who were not in employment, education or training in 2023 were women. The female youth NEET rate was 27 percent, compared with 16.9 percent for young men.
These figures highlight the need to examine barriers that extend beyond educational attainment or technical competence.
Young women may face disproportionate unpaid care responsibilities, difficulties accessing finance, unsafe transport, workplace discrimination and limited access to professional networks. Young mothers can find it particularly difficult to return to education or employment without affordable childcare and flexible arrangements.
Such barriers reduce the pool of talent available to businesses and limit the economic returns from investments in education.
Employers and governments can respond through fair recruitment practices, stronger protection against workplace discrimination, accessible childcare, safer transport and targeted training programmes.
The objective should be to ensure that employment opportunities are determined by capability and fair competition rather than by circumstances that unnecessarily exclude qualified candidates.
Entrepreneurship cannot replace a functioning jobs market
Entrepreneurship is frequently presented as a solution to youth unemployment, and for good reason. Young entrepreneurs can create businesses, introduce new products, support local supply chains and employ other people.
But entrepreneurship programmes are unlikely to deliver lasting results if they focus mainly on business registration, short training courses or the distribution of small loans without addressing market demand.
A viable business needs customers, working capital, reliable infrastructure, appropriate technology and the ability to compete. Young entrepreneurs also need practical support with financial management, marketing, taxation, procurement and business development.
Governments and development partners can improve outcomes by linking finance to mentorship, market access and measurable business performance.
Large companies can contribute by opening procurement opportunities to qualified small enterprises and helping local suppliers meet quality standards.
Agriculture illustrates the potential. Investment in storage, irrigation, cold chains, food processing, packaging and distribution can create employment beyond primary production, while connecting young entrepreneurs to domestic and regional markets.
Similar opportunities exist in tourism, renewable energy, logistics and digital services. Nevertheless, not every young person can or should become an entrepreneur. Expanding sustainable wage employment must remain a central objective alongside support for enterprise creation.
