Kenya’s jobless engineers, doctors fight for gig work

At least 40 percent of Kenyans working in the gig economy as freelancers hold a degree in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), underlining the underemployment that has now forced medical doctors and engineers to fight for short-term online jobs.

The findings of the newly published International Labour Organisation (ILO) survey show that many of these workers are engaged in tasks that do not fully utilise their skills and expertise, leading to a notable skills mismatch.

“Nearly 40 percent of the highly educated workers in micro-tasking had a degree in STEM subjects...within this group, 26 percent, had studied medicine and formal and natural sciences, while a relatively smaller proportion, approximately 9 percent, were engineers,” says the survey report.

Microtasking involves breaking down large jobs into smaller tasks that can be shared and done online to a large workforce working remotely.

More than half (58 percent) of women are doing micro tasks such as transcription and surveys to support their livelihoods. Women with STEM degrees dominate micro-tasking activities such as transcription at 80 percent of women compared to 65 percent of men.

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Artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks attracted more men (35 percent) with STEM degrees compared to less than 10 percent of women.

Dr Dennis Miskellah, the deputy secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), attributed the trend of medical doctors taking up online jobs to limited employment opportunities in government for fresh medicine graduates in the past five years.

“From 2019, the government stopped absorbing doctors and this has seriously affected the profession. These young men and women are seeking jobs elsewhere, including technical academic writing, because they have the brains for it,” said Dr Miskellah.

“For about seven years since they were 18 years old, these doctors know nothing else except medicine. They have studied medicine but cannot practice it, their skill is medicine since they were teenagers and with no entrepreneurial skill, they take up scientific writing which only requires their brain and a laptop.”

Dr Miskellah said that about 4500 doctors have remained unemployed since 2019. Engineers also say the government is not employing local professionals but outsourcing foreign engineers to carry out projects, citing the example of the standard gauge railway (SGR) for which the Chinese were engaged.

“This issue of unemployment is a big concern not only for engineers. The government is supposed to be the major employer but it is no longer employing our profession, only National Police or the army that is often advertised,” said Nathaniel Matalanga, a former president of the Institution of Engineers of Kenya (IEK).

“A lot of foreigners are doing our work which can be done locally, which is why it’s very hard for graduate engineers to get jobs.”

The ILO survey was conducted between 2019 and 2022, with over 1,800 Kenyans participating It found that more than 100 percent of male transcribers had an economics, accounting or finance degree compared to 79 percent of women in the same field.

Around 33 percent of these well-educated respondents specialised in medicine and natural sciences, with the proportion being even higher among women (46 percent).

Some 15 percent pursued IT and computer-related degrees, which was more common among men (25 percent), while a small proportion (2.0 percent) pursued engineering degrees.

About 34 percent of the highly educated respondents pursued degrees in economics or business-related subjects and 17 percent held a degree in other social sciences.

The ILO report says a substantial proportion of STEM graduates among microtask workers indicated a significant skills mismatch on these platforms, including Remotasks, Scribie, Rev, and Clickworker.

These graduates typically possess specialised knowledge and technical skills that are more suited to complex and analytical roles, rather than the typically short, repetitive and low-skilled assignments they undertake on microtask platforms.

“Despite the high prevalence of workers with STEM education in the sample, many of the tasks they engage in, such as data entry and annotation, do not typically require such specialised training,” says the survey report.

“This scenario underscores a disconnect between the higher education system and job market demands, leading to underemployment of highly skilled young professionals. This raises questions about the alignment of educational curricula with industry needs and the potential for career advancement within the sector.”

Tasks on microtask platforms can be classified into artificial intelligence and machine learning and the promotion of products and services.

Microtask workers in Kenya actively participated in various tasks, with almost all respondents involved in artificial intelligence and machine learning-related tasks.

Their motivation for online jobs stems from inefficiencies in the local labour market, where suitable job opportunities that align with their qualifications are not being created while others prefer working from home.

Prior to starting micro-tasking, half of the respondents had another job, with a higher proportion being women (63 percent).

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“In their other jobs, 35 percent were salaried employees with a contract; the rest were temporary workers or self-employed workers and more women (41 percent) reported being an employee with a contract,” says the ILO report.

“Furthermore, many of these women were in an office job (23 percent), in contrast to men (9 percent). Other workplaces included schools, hospitals, hospitality and retail establishments.”

The most recent unemployment data in Kenya shows that 67 percent of jobless Kenyans have given up looking for work or starting businesses, disheartened by lower opportunities in a tough economy that has seen many firms freeze hiring to survive.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data covering the quarter that ended December 2022 shows that 2.01 million out of the total of 2.97 million jobless Kenyans aged between 15 and 64 — and who qualify for the labour force — were not actively looking for employment.

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