China Road & Bridge Corp. said it’s recruiting 30,000 Kenyan workers to build a $3.6-billion railway from the East African nation’s port city of Mombasa to the capital, Nairobi.
The company is seeking skilled professionals for roles that include engineering and equipment operators as well as casual laborers for the project, the company said today in an e-mailed statement. Once completed, workers with the appropriate qualifications and experience will be needed to operate the railway, according to China Road & Bridge.
The unemployment rate among young people in Kenya is estimated by the United Nations to be double the national level of 13 percent, with President Uhuru Kenyatta saying tackling youth joblessness is one of the nation’s biggest challenges.
About 77 percent of Kenyans would oppose 5,000 or more Chinese workers being brought into Kenya to build the railway, according to a survey of 625 people conducted by the Nairobi-based Consumers Federation of Kenya between August and September. It didn’t give a margin of error for the poll.
In May, the Export-Import Bank of China agreed to finance 90 percent of the cost of constructing the railway line that will eventually link to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
