Bella Abok       

The Covid-19 pandemic has occasioned significant economic shifts with some sectors on the brink of collapse. 

Border closures, dusk to dawn curfews, travel restrictions and bans on gatherings have left many businesses struggling to stay afloat.

For those that have managed to remain in business, reassessment of human resource optimisation and hiring policies is now a matter of survival versus extinction.  

Between March and April 2020 when the impact was highest, overall formal employment across Kenya dropped by 16 per cent compared to a similar period in 2019. 

In the manufacturing sector, over 31,000 jobs have been lost while employment in the hospitality and tourism sector shrunk by more than 33 per cent. 

While there are indications of gradual economic recovery, the prevailing trend points to a dramatic shift as younger and more agile firms dominate emerging opportunities while older firms struggle to keep up.

In the financial, retail/wholesale ad administrative sectors where the most significant growth patterns have been recorded, technology has emerged as a key driver in influencing hiring and sustainability decisions.

A considerable number of players in these industries have managed to adjust their core business to support essential services sectors by adopting new technologies.

This has resulted in a spike in demand for technology-based careers.

Kenya’s national Labour Strategic Plan highlights a mismatch between skills possessed by graduates and job seekers vis-a-vis the demand in the labour market.

This has led to increased costs by employers in training and retraining workers, a challenge which is further aggravated by inadequate up-to-date labour market information making it difficult to plan and develop the country’s human resource capital.

Among the approaches being fronted as a solution to this problem is a renewed focus on recruitment of female applicants from universities to address gender gaps in the national workforce.

However, the proportion of women in technical roles which comprise the majority of entry level employment opportunities remains underwhelming.

It is, therefore, an opportune time to prioritise development of technology based skills among women across all sectors of the economy in order to enhance their ability to contribute to the immediate post-Covid economic revival efforts as well as long-term national growth.  

Artificial intelligence offers a ready solution to this problem by enabling hirers to access a quality pool of candidates then rapidly filter and shortlist applicants based on organizational priorities.

For small firms, such solutions are not only affordable but also provide the efficiency needed to accelerate growth in a tough economic environment.

Large organisations can also tap into the employee and labour market data to identify underutilised skills within their workforce and track career progression for current and former staffers.

Ultimately, these solutions can enable organisations to achieve gender balance when recruiting new members of staff and evaluating hiring policies. — The writer is the Head of Operations and Customer Experience at Brighter Monday