Kenya (1)

Title of the survey

Annual Enumeration of Employees and Self-Employed Persons.

Organization responsible

Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Ministry of Planning and National Development.

Periodicity of the survey

Annual.

Objectives of the survey

To estimate trends in employment and earnings. The survey results are used to evaluate various aspects of government policy measures and development programmes and to compute national accounts. They are also used to update the Central Register of Establishments.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, earnings and hours of work.

Reference period

Employment: 30 June of each year for large establishments (20 employees and more) and 30 March for small establishments (less than 20 employees). Earnings: the months of June and March. Hours of work: the month of June; data are collected only for large establishments in the June survey.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

All divisions of economic activity, except private households with employed persons.

Establishments

Establishments of all types and sizes in urban and rural areas of the modern sector. The survey covers both private and public establishments.

Persons

All persons engaged.

Occupations

Specific and pre-determined occupational groups are covered by the June survey of large establishments. Over 30 occupational groups are separately identified. Data are not collected by occupation in the March survey of small establishments.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

All persons engaged include employees, self-employed persons, unpaid proprietors and directors, and unpaid family workers. Employees are persons who work under a written or oral contract of service and receive wages or salary. They include wage earners and salaried employees; full- and part-time employees; permanent, temporary and casual employees; apprentices, trainees, workers on probation and piece workers; as well as persons temporarily absent from work because of paid or unpaid vacation, sickness or accident or any other reasons, whether authorised or not. Employees sub-contracted from other companies or firms and employees from temporary work agencies are also included. Excluded from employees are persons temporarily absent from work because of temporary or indefinite lay off and temporary military service. The following categories of persons engaged are separately identified:

regular employees, defined as persons employed on monthly, weekly or ticket-contract terms of service, on a verbal or written contract;
casual employees, defined as persons whose terms of engagement provide for their payment at the end of each day and who are not engaged for a period longer than 30 days;
self-employed, unpaid family workers, unpaid proprietors and directors.

For each of the above categories, employment data are collected by sex and citizenship. In the June survey, data on the number of regular employees are collected by occupational group.

Earnings

Data are collected on gross cash remuneration paid for the reference month. They refer to wages and salaries in cash for normal time worked or work done, overtime payments, regular allowances such as housing allowance, family allowance etc., remuneration for time not worked and regularly or irregularly paid bonuses and gratuities. Earnings data are collected separately for regular and casual employees, by sex. In the June survey, earnings data of regular employees are collected by occupational group. In the June survey, data are also collected on remuneration in kind as follows:

the total value of rations, including meals, given out during the reference month;
employers' annual expenditure during the 12 months ending 30 June, for:
- contributions to the National Social Security Fund;
- leave passages paid for employees;
- bonus and gratuity payments;
- contributions to private provident funds;
- cost of uniforms and other clothing and boarding provided to employees;
- medical benefits.
the number of employees who were housed (a) free and (b) with deductions, as at 30 June;
employers' annual cost of housing employees free or with deductions.

An estimate is then made of earnings in kind (for food and meals, housing, clothing, etc.).

Wage/salary rates

Not relevant.

Hours of work

In the June survey, data are collected on normal average hours worked per week by an adult employee. These include (a) normal hours of work as fixed by laws or establishments' regulations and (b) overtime. Meal breaks are excluded.

International recommendations

The concepts of gross cash remuneration and earnings in kind used in this survey conform to the international recommendations on gross earnings. The concept of "normal average hours worked" used in this survey is close to the concept of hours paid for.

Classifications

Industrial

The data on employment, earnings and hours of work are classified according to 173 groups at the four-digit level. The classification is an adaptation of the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev. 2, 1968.

Occupational

Data on employment, earnings and hours of work are classified according to the Kenya National Occupational Classification System (KNOCS). This classification conforms to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-68), with some slight variations to fit the Kenyan situation.

Others

The survey data are classified by sector (public or private), province, district, town, category of employee (regular and casual) and sex. In the June survey, employment data are also classified by citizenship (citizens and non-citizens).

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The establishment, defined as an entity which exclusively or principally carries out a single type of economic activity at a single physical location. The establishments covered are those having identifiable permanent business premises within Kenya.

Survey universe / sample frame

Consists of the Central Register of Establishments which is maintained by the CBS. At the end of 1991, the Central Register of Establishments covered some 40,000 active establishments in the modern sector. The Register covers all establishments operating in recognizable permanent premises (solid buildings). Such establishments are required to have a license for their activities, which leads, in turn, to their inclusion in the register. The Register is regularly updated on the basis of various administrative registers, e.g. the Registrar's General Office in the Attorney General's Chamber, the registers maintained by the National Social Security Fund, the Ministry of Industry, records maintained by various professional bodies, and the media such as Business Directory, Telephone Directory, newspapers, magazines and periodicals. Feedback from field follow-ups and other establishment-based surveys are also used to update the Central Register. Information on civil servants and teachers employed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is obtained through the magnetic tapes maintained by the Government Computer Services.

Sample design

The survey is a complete enumeration of establishments.

Field work

Data collection

The survey is conducted through mailed questionnaires which are sent out the last week of March and June. Respondents are required to return the completed forms within 15 days of their receipt. In the case of non-response by establishments employing 20 or more employees, reminders are sent in August and are then followed up by personal visits of CBS permanent field enumerators.

Survey questionnaire

Two separate questionnaires are dispatched:

a long version is addressed to establishments with 20 or more persons engaged (the June survey);
a shorter version is addressed to small establishments (the March survey).

The questionnaire addressed to large establishments comprises six parts:

Part I - Particulars of employer (information on establishment);
Part II - Numbers employed by occupational group, sex and citizenship, and gross cash remuneration paid in June, by occupational group and sex;
Part III - Numbers of regular employees, by sex and by wage or salary group (excluding casual employees);
Part IV - Total remuneration of all regular and casual employees on the payroll during June, and employers' annual expenditure during the 12 months ending in June;
Part V - Number of employees housed, annual cost of accommodation and normal average hours worked per week by adult workers;
Part VI - Comments on possible changes in employment and/or earnings since June of the previous year.

The second questionnaire sent to small establishments comprises three parts:

Part I: Particulars of employer;
Part II: Number of regular and casual employees, self-employed persons and unpaid family workers, by sex and total gross cash remuneration of regular and casual employees, by sex;
Part III: Name of owner, manager or person in charge.

An Interviewers' Manual is also available to enumerators.

Substitution of sampling units

Not applicable.

Data processing and editing

Data are edited manually and then processed by computer. Most of the questionnaire is precoded and instructions are available for complementary manual coding.

Types of estimates

total number of persons engaged and employees;
total and average earnings.

Average earnings are obtained by dividing the total gross cash remuneration paid during the reference month, and the monthly estimate of benefits in kind, by the number of corresponding employees.

Construction of indices

Index numbers are not constructed.

Weighting of sample results

Not relevant.

Adjustments

Non-response

In case of non-response by establishments with 20 or more employees, it is assumed that employment estimates have not changed since the previous year. However, when those establishments have not responded for two consecutive years, it is assumed that employment estimates have followed an average pattern similar to that of similar establishments in the same sector, which have responded for three consecutive years.

Other bias

Not applicable.

Use of benchmark data

Not applicable.

Seasonal variations

No adjustments are made for seasonal variations.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

The coverage of the Central Register of Establishments is considered almost complete, as there seems to be little chance for businesses operating in recognizable permanent solid premises to remain unlicensed, and therefore unregistered, without being detected by the authorities. In addition, newly created establishments that have not yet been licensed are listed by the field staff and entered into the waiting file of the Register. The waiting file also contains information on dormant units, i.e. units which are licensed but have not yet started to operate, and units identified by the survey field staff as being closed down or temporarily inactive.

Sampling error / sampling variance

Not applicable.

Non-response rate

The response rate is about 60 per cent for large establishments, but only 25 per cent for small ones. Follow-up actions through personal visits are undertaken by the CBS in order to increase the response rate of large establishments, which account for about 70 per cent of total paid employment.

Non-sampling errors

Not available.

Conformity with other sources

Not relevant.

Available series

Published tables include total employment, total and average earnings statistics, cross-classified by:

private and public sector and industry,
industry and sex,
province, district and industry,
industry, province, district and industry in public sector,
industry, province and main towns.

and average hours of work per week by industry.

History of the survey

The Annual Enumeration of Employees and Self-employed persons has been conducted on a regular basis since late 1940s.

Documentation

Ministry of Planning and National Development, Central Bureau of Statistics: Employment and Earnings in the Modern Sector (annual, Nairobi). idem: Economic Survey (annual, ibid.). idem: Statistical Abstract (annual, ibid.). idem: Kenya Statistical Digest(quarterly, ibid.).

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

The statistics are collected under the Statistics Act, Cap.112 and the Statistics (Employment and Self-Employed) Regulations, 1990. The data are treated as confidential and restricted to the CBS.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

Data on employment (employees), average hours paid for and average monthly earnings of employees, by industry, are published in Tables 3A, 3B, 4 to 8 and 11 to 21 of the Yearbook of Labour Statistics. Data on occupational wages and hours of work were published in the Bulletin of Labour Statistics - October Inquiry Results until the 1987 edition.