Kenya, Germany didn’t agree on specific number of jobs in labour deal: PS Njogu

Kenya’s Diaspora Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Njogu says the number of jobs in the labour deal Kenya and Germany signed last week is not specified.

“The question of whether it is 250,000 or 30,000 or 10,000 is moot because it is as many as can qualify,” Njogu told NTV in a Monday night interview.

“It is a non-quota-based agreement; some agreements say the number of visas a country will give Kenya, but this agreement is very different. Germany says it has opened the market for Kenyans, provided you qualify per its laws.”

Nairobi and Berlin last Friday signed an agreement on “labour mobility, apprenticeships, student training, labour market needs, employment, employee welfare, and the readmission and return of workers,” according to a dispatch from President William Ruto’s office.

Ruto signed the deal with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, where he gave an interview to the German broadcaster DW saying the deal would “unlock 250,000 job opportunities for young Kenyans.”

“The agreement we just signed will unlock 250,000 job opportunities for young Kenyans. It is a win-win; there is a big labour deficit in Germany and a labour oversupply in Kenya,” Ruto told the network.

But the German government was quick to refute the figures as reported by several other outlets globally, clarifying that these numbers are non-binding and referring to the stipulations of the German Skilled Immigration Act.

"This information is clearly false," Germany’s Interior Ministry said on X in response to a BBC headline reading ‘Germany to welcome 250,000 Kenyans in labour deal’, “The agreement between Germany and Kenya does not include any numbers or quotas of skilled workers who will have the opportunity to work in Germany.”

“All applicants must fulfil the strict requirements of the German Skilled Immigration Act.”

Now, PS Njogu says Ruto’s figure was drawn from the number of available job opportunities he and the German chancellor reportedly floated.

“One of the issues President Ruto and Chancellor Scholz discussed was the size of the market and how many opportunities exist. The 250,000 is the size of the market,” she said on Monday.

“What Kenyans ought to be concerning themselves with is not whether there are 250,000 jobs… it is how to prepare themselves to play in this market.”