At the height of the pandemic, remote work was widely celebrated in Kenya as a bold leap into the future, a democratising force for employment that promised to unlock opportunities for women, young people, and anyone with access to a laptop and a reliable internet connection.  

For a moment, it seemed like the country’s labour market might leapfrog traditional barriers of geography and bureaucracy. That optimism has since given way to a more sobering reality. 

Between 2023 and the first half of 2025, job postings for remote roles on BrighterMonday Kenya fell dramatically, from 685 at the peak to just 95.

While the country continues to position itself as a digital hub, the steep drop in remote work opportunities reveals deep-seated frictions within the economy: rising taxation on the creative sector, limited infrastructure, weak trust in self-managed workforces, and a labour market struggling to adapt to new ways of working. 

One of the least examined but most consequential forces behind this decline is taxation. In the past year, a series of new levies targeting digital content creators and freelance earners have made remote and informal online work less financially attractive. 

The Digital Marketplace Income Tax, expanded compliance thresholds, and the enforcement of the Digital Services Tax have introduced new frictions into what was once a fast-growing, low-barrier-to-entry segment of the economy.  

For young Kenyans using platforms like YouTube, TikTok, or Fiverr to earn income, the prospect of navigating tax obligations has created confusion and, in some cases, discouraged participation altogether.

While the intent is to broaden the tax base and bring digital workers into the formal economy, the pace and structure of implementation have raised concerns. 

Many creators, already facing monetisation hurdles on global platforms, now face a double bind: local taxes eroding already slim margins and inconsistent enforcement undermining trust in the system. 

For employers, these tax pressures can disincentivise hiring contractors remotely, especially where withholding obligations and compliance penalties apply. 

But the problem runs deeper than taxes. According to BrighterMonday Kenya’s latest labour market trends report, the entire employment engine is misfiring.

Despite over 1.3 million active job seeker profiles and more than a million applications on the platform each year, employers remain hesitant to hire, particularly for white-collar roles like sales, accounting, and administration. 

Each advertised position draws an average of 500 applicants, reflecting not only intense competition but also a persistent mismatch between what the job market demands and what applicants are trained to offer. 

Sarah Ndegwa, acting Managing Director of BrighterMonday Kenya, notes that while job listings have increased in sectors like healthcare, education, and financial services, the number of employers actively hiring remains lower than in 2023.  

The result is a distorted labour market: high job-seeking activity but low absorption.

“The economy is not creating formal jobs quickly enough to absorb the roughly 800,000 new entrants into the labour market each year, most of whom are aged between 20 and 29,” she said during a presentation of the findings. 

Even in areas where demand is rising, such as software development, digital marketing, and project management, employers struggle to find suitable candidates. Tech roles are expanding, but they remain among the hardest to fill.  

This growing tech talent shortage is compounded by structural deficits in Kenya’s education and training systems. Cybersecurity, artificial intelligence integration, data analytics, and cloud computing rank among the most in-demand capabilities, yet are in critically short supply. 

The shift away from remote work is also a story about control and collaboration. While remote models initially allowed employers to sustain operations during lockdowns, many have since reverted to hybrid or fully in-office arrangements.  

Employers cite difficulties in tracking productivity, maintaining team cohesion, and managing deliverables.  The shift reflects not only managerial preferences but also constraints on the part of employees, including patchy internet, unreliable electricity, and the absence of dedicated workspaces at home.

Despite Kenya’s rapid digital adoption, much of the supporting infrastructure remains uneven. 

This regression in remote work adoption raises larger questions about the inclusivity of Kenya’s post-pandemic work model. For many women, youth, and persons with disabilities, flexible work options were a lifeline.

Their erosion could worsen existing inequalities in the labour market, especially when combined with the mounting tax burden on digital freelancers and content creators. 

Sectoral dynamics are also playing a role. The ICT and telecoms sectors, once at the heart of Kenya’s “Silicon Savannah” narrative, are showing signs of maturity and cost rationalisation.  

Hiring is slowing, and firms appear to be moving toward project-based or short-term contracts rather than permanent roles.

This shift reflects capital expenditure caution in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty, rising financing costs, and government budget tightening. 

Other sectors, such as NGOs, education, and public administration, are seeing increased hiring, often tied to donor funding cycles or civil service reforms. But these gains are not enough to offset the structural gaps elsewhere in the economy. 

Kenya’s labour market remains fragmented, with different sectors operating on vastly different models of employment, compensation, and career progression. 

However, all is not bleak. Kenya retains important structural advantages that could support long-term transformation.  

With nearly half the population in the working-age bracket and average labour costs lower than in India or Eastern Europe, the country remains attractive for digital offshoring and business process outsourcing.  

Multinational companies continue to explore Nairobi as a potential regional hub for shared services, call centres, and back-office operations. 

Ndegwa reckons that to unlock this potential, passive market forces will not be enough. What is needed is a coordinated national response that addresses both supply and demand dynamics.  

On the supply side, this means investing in skills that match the needs of a modern digital economy, whether through vocational training, partnerships with private sector actors, or revamping university curricula.