Financial services firm Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Group is launching KaziKasi to help connect semi-skilled and unskilled youth in Kenya to informal sector jobs such as drivers, house helps, supermarket and gas station attendants among others.
According to the firm, the portal is set to launch in May and aims to sign up over 100 jobs each day in a move the bank sees as a new opportunity area to connect its banking customers to informal sector workers. KCB also says the platform is part of its ambitious KShs.50 billion enterprise development programme dubbed 2Jiajiri geared towards job creation and solving youth unemployment by creating at least 2.5 million direct and indirect jobs.
KCB says the portal has integrated Lipa Na M-Pesa on the site already and will vet the blue-collar workers such as painters, cleaners, plumbers and standardize their daily and hourly rates so that clients can easily identify who to work with and how much to pay at the end of the day. KaziKasi will also train and empower and equip unemployed and out-of-school youth to grow micro enterprises by providing them with technical skill training opportunities through KCB’s 2Jiajiri programme as well as up-skilling and certifying existing micro-entrepreneurs who wish to move their business from the informal to the formal sector. The firm aims to train youth in Building and Construction, Hair and Beauty, Automotive Engineering, Domestic Services and Agriculture sectors among others.
KCB’s KaziKasi is not the first platform to want to connect semi-skilled and unskilled youths to blue-collar jobs in the country as Tandaa Grants winner Juakali, founded by Akirachix’s Judith Owigar, has been around for sometime even though inactive. Other platforms such as Mafundi, Lynk among others have tried to solve this urban problem with less success.
It will be so interesting to see how the team at KCB, with all their resources go about this bank’s side project of connecting youths into paid jobs so that it can increase its customer base for loans, insurance and bank accounts.
