In 2003, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government formulated a five-year development strategy. This strategy was anchored in the principles of democracy and empowerment (the strategy supported the empowerment of people through the creation of jobs and other income opportunities. Despite all these interventions, the creation of adequate, productive and sustainable jobs continues to be the largest The Economic Challenge for Kenya For more than four and a half decades now, the Kenyan government has continuously expressed the need to create sufficient job opportunities to absorb the country's growing workforce. Unemployment and underemployment have been identified as Kenya's most difficult and persistent problems .Say no to plagiarism Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay due to the high unemployment rate in the country and lack of job diversity The main industry in Kenya is agriculture (with tea, coffee and flower cultivation being quite large) and around 75% of the population is employed in. that field. In terms of revenue, tourism is also important. The official unemployment rate in 2004 was 15%, although some estimates place the real figure much higher. People with very specialized training in fields other than agriculture may find employment opportunities in Kenya scarce. This has created a difficult situation as more and more young Kenyans pursue higher education, only to find that the job market cannot accommodate them. Minimum wages for jobs in Kenya vary by location and skill level and are not uniform across the country. In 2006, the minimum wage for an urban worker was approximately 4,600 Kenyan shillings, or 60 US dollars per month (at 2006 exchange rates). This income is not enough to support a family, which leaves many workers having to rely on additional labor or subsistence farming to survive. The agricultural sector continues to dominate Kenya's economy, although only 15% of Kenya's total land area has sufficient fertility and rainfall to be cultivated. Agriculture is the second largest contributor to Kenya's gross domestic product (GDP) after the services sector. Kenya's services sector, which contributes about 63% to GDP, is dominated by tourism. The tourism sector has shown steady growth in most years. In Kenya the services sector contributes 47.7%, the agricultural sector contributes 35% and industry contributes up to 17.6% of the economy's GDP. As an agricultural exporter and capital goods importer, Kenya regularly has a trade deficit making it highly dependent. on loans and aid to finance necessary imports. The trade balance deficit varies widely, depending, among other things, on the market success of agricultural commodities exported in a given year (as we have seen, this in turn depends on both weather conditions and international commodity prices ). In 1996, for example, the deficit amounted to $73.5 million, while this figure increased dramatically to $251.7 million in 2000, a year of endemic drought. However, with a large amount of foreign exchange reserves, amounting to $875 million in 2000, Kenya has been able to significantly reduce its total external debt, from $6.9 billion in 1996 to $5.7 billion in 2000. Kenya's major exports include tea, coffee,.