Abstract

The STEP (Skills Toward Employment and Productivity) Measurement program is the first ever initiative to generate internationally comparable data on skills available in developing countries. The program implements standardized surveys to gather information on the supply and distribution of skills and the demand for skills in labor market of low-income countries.

The uniquely designed modules in the Employer Survey aim to assess the structure of the labor force; the skills (cognitive skills, behavior and personality traits, and job-relevant skills) currently being used; the skills that employers look for when hiring new workers; the propensity of firms to provide training (including satisfaction with education, training, and levels of specific skills) and the link between skills and compensation and promotion. The survey also captures background characteristics (size, legal form, industry, full time vs. non-standard employment and occupational breakdown), performance (revenues, wages and other costs, profits and scope of market), key labor market challenges and their ranking relative to other challenges, and job skill requirements of the firms being interviewed.

The questionnaire can be adapted to address a sample of firms in both informal and formal sectors, with varying sizes and industry classifications.

Geographic coverage

Capital Nairobi and other urban areas.

Analysis unit

The units of analysis are establishments or workplaces - a single location at which one or more employees work. The larger legal entity may include multiple establishments. The firms on the list will have been randomly chosen, with probability proportional to the number of employees in the firm.

Universe

The universe of the study are non-government businesses registered with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), from 2016. Firms with at least five employees were selected from the following sectors: Manufacturing, Trade and Other Services.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sampling objective of the survey was to obtain interviews from 500 non-government enterprise workplaces in the capital and urban regions of Kenya. Firms with less than five employees were excluded from the target population.

Two-stage stratified random sampling was used in the survey. A list of businesses registered with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) from 2016, served as the sampling frame.

Detailed information about sampling is available in the Kenya Employer Survey Design Planning Report and Kenya Employer Survey Weighting Procedure, provided as Related Material.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

The Questionnaire for the STEP Employer Survey consists of five modules:

Section 1 - Work Force Section 2 - Skills Used Section 3 - Hiring Practices Section 4 - Training and Compensation Section 5 - Background

In the case of Kenya, the questionnaire was adapted to the Kenya context and published in English and Swahili. It has been provided as Related Material.

Cleaning operations

STEP Data Management Process:

1) Raw data is sent by the survey firm

2) The World Bank (WB) STEP team runs data checks on the Questionnaire data. Comments and questions are sent back to the survey firm.

3) The survey firm reviews comments and questions. When a data entry error is identified, the survey firm corrects the data.

4) The WB STEP team again check to make sure the data files are clean. This might require additional iterations with the survey firm.

5) Once the data has been checked and cleaned, the WB STEP team computes the weights. Weights are computed by the STEP team to ensure consistency across sampling methodologies.

Response rate

An overall response rate of 72% was achieved in Kenya STEP Survey. Detailed distribution of responses by stratum can be found in the document Kenya Employer Survey Weighting Procedure, available as Related Material.

The STEP (Skills Toward Employment and Productivity) Measurement program is the first ever initiative to generate internationally comparable data on skills available in developing countries. The program implements standardized surveys to gather information on the supply and distribution of skills and the demand for skills in labor market of low-income countries. The uniquely designed modules in the Employer Survey aim to assess the structure of the labor force; the skills (cognitive skills, behavior and personality traits, and job-relevant skills) currently being used; the skills that employers look for when hiring new workers; the propensity of firms to provide training (including satisfaction with education, training, and levels of specific skills) and the link between skills and compensation and promotion. The survey also captures background characteristics (size, legal form, industry, full time vs. non-standard employment and occupational breakdown), performance (revenues, wages and other costs, profits and scope of market), key labor market challenges and their ranking relative to other challenges, and job skill requirements of the firms being interviewed. The questionnaire can be adapted to address a sample of firms in both informal and formal sectors, with varying sizes and industry classifications.