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knbs ke.knbs.wage-employment-by-sector.annual annual

Wage Employment by Sector.

↗ source

VERSION v2026-09-10

UPDATED 17d ago

COVERAGE 2020 - 2024

SHAPE 85 × 7

SIZE 5.5 KB

FREQUENCY annual

PIPELINE automated

LICENSE Not stated

SOURCE www.knbs.or.ke

Kenya's formal wage employment, cut by who the employer is, from Table 3.3 of the Statistical Abstract. Twelve sectors under a private and a public heading, the two group sub-totals, the national total, and a second cut of private employment into agriculture and forestry against everything else.

Kenya had 3,213,821 people in wage employment in 2024, 471,191 more than in 2020, a rise of 17.2 per cent over four years. The public sector holds 1,023,224 of them, and its share has barely moved: 32.3 per cent in 2020 against 31.8 per cent in 2024.

Locally owned private companies are the largest employer at 824,599, one wage job in four. The single largest employer in the country is the Teachers Service Commission, with 410,702 people, 12.8 per cent of all wage employment and two fifths of the public payroll; it is also the fastest-growing of the twelve sectors, up 24.0 per cent since 2020. State corporations grew slowest, both kinds at 4.6 per cent. Private agriculture and forestry employs 308,865, which is 14.1 per cent of private wage employment and under a tenth of the total.

The four levels of sector_level are separate cuts and are not additive with each other. The twelve ownership rows add to their group, the two groups add to the national total, and the two activity rows split private employment only: add the Public group to them for the national figure. Table 3.3a's own Public Sector and Total rows are the same figures as the group and total published here, to the employee, so they are checked rather than published a second time.

This dataset and ke.knbs.wage-employment-by-industry.annual cut the same national figure two ways, four tables apart, and agree in all five years to within one employee.

LOADING DATA...

ONE EMPLOYER, ONE JOB IN EIGHT

One employer holds 410,702 of Kenya's wage jobs: the Teachers Service Commission, 12.8 per cent of the national payroll and two fifths of the public one.

Wage employment by sector · employees · 12 sectors, 2020 against 2024

SOURCE: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics · Wage Employment by Sector · Updated 2026-09-10

#	year	period_start	sector	sector_level	status	value	unit
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COLUMN	TYPE	DESCRIPTION	UNIT
year	int64	Calendar year, 2020 to 2024	-
period_start	date	1 January of the year, for time-series joins	-
sector	string	The sector, group or split the figure belongs to, or ALL SECTORS for the national total	-
sector_level	string	total for the national figure; group for Private and Public; ownership for the twelve sectors of Table 3.3b, which add to their group; activity for Table 3.3a's split of private employment into agriculture and forestry against the rest, which adds to Private and not to the total	-
status	string	final, or provisional for 2024, which the source marks	-
value	float64	People in wage employment	-
unit	string	Always employees	-

CITATION · APA 7

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. (2026). Wage Employment by Sector [Data set] (Version 2026-09-10). Distributed by imibare. https://imibare.org/datasets/ke.knbs.wage-employment-by-sector.annual