A photo widely shared on Facebook on 30 June 2019 claim to reveal young Kenyan graduates’ desperation to find work.
It shows a long queue of people outside Eka Hotel in Nairobi. A post on a Kenyan Facebook group with 2 million members says the queue is of graduates wanting to apply for five waitering jobs advertised by the hotel. Another post says seven jobs were available.
“Eka Hotel along Mombasa Road, advertised 5 job positions and 22,578 graduates showed up. Education is no longer the key it seems,” one user captioned the photo.
The photo was shared on blogs and a video of the crowd broadcast by local media.
But Eka Hotel said it did not advertise any vacancies and wasn’t conducting interviews.
“We would like to clarify reports that Eka Hotel has advertised for five vacancies are not true,” the hotel said on its Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“Contrary to these reports, it is one of our clients, a recruitment agency, that was conducting interviews from the hotel.”
The hotel also said the agency was recruiting for “quite [a lot] more” than five vacancies.
So, yes, there was a crowd of job-seekers at Eka Hotel. But they weren’t there for just five or seven hotel jobs. – Dancan Bwire
It shows a long queue of people outside Eka Hotel in Nairobi. A post on a Kenyan Facebook group with 2 million members says the queue is of graduates wanting to apply for five waitering jobs advertised by the hotel. Another post says seven jobs were available.
“Eka Hotel along Mombasa Road, advertised 5 job positions and 22,578 graduates showed up. Education is no longer the key it seems,” one user captioned the photo.
The photo was shared on blogs and a video of the crowd broadcast by local media.
Recruitment agency conducting interviews
But Eka Hotel said it did not advertise any vacancies and wasn’t conducting interviews.
“We would like to clarify reports that Eka Hotel has advertised for five vacancies are not true,” the hotel said on its Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“Contrary to these reports, it is one of our clients, a recruitment agency, that was conducting interviews from the hotel.”
The hotel also said the agency was recruiting for “quite [a lot] more” than five vacancies.
So, yes, there was a crowd of job-seekers at Eka Hotel. But they weren’t there for just five or seven hotel jobs. – Dancan Bwire
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Further Reading
[email protected]: The challenges of working across Africa
Misinformation knows no borders and Africa Check often responds to similar false claims from country to country.
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