The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) have today Tuesday, 29 November 2022 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on joint initiatives aimed at enhancing evidence-based data driven policy-making on employment and the labour market.

The partnership comes at a time when recent statistics reveal that only nine per cent of Kenyans have permanent, full-time jobs; while slightly above a quarter (25.2%) of adults depend on others for survival.

Salaries and Statistics bodies sign pact to inform job market policy. Pact comes amid low employment levels in the country 

The need for official statistics is crucial as it reveals trends on economic growth indicators on issues such as job creation, which stood at 173,000 last year, as compared to 213,000 formal jobs created in 2015.

Data and statistics guides responsive policy-making; facilitates equitable resource allocation to critical sectors such as industries for job creation and the labour market. It also enables the monitoring of progress made during implementation of policies and programmes, which then assists in evaluating gains made after programme implementation.

Through the exchange of records, information and data, as well as capacity-building and dissemination, the MOU envisages evidence-based frameworks to set and regularly review the remuneration and benefits of all State officers, as well as provide advice to the national and county governments on the remuneration and benefits of all other public officers.

This will ensure the promotion of openness and accountability in the management of public finances, and specifically, relating to the remuneration and benefits payable to State and other public officers.

The partnership between SRC and KNBS will ultimately facilitate the realisation of the principles of public finance as articulated in Article 201 and Article 230(5) of the constitution, as well as Section 12(1) of SRC Act, 2011, and expounded in the Public Finance Management Act, 2012.