NAIROBI, Kenya– The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has tightened its grip as the country’s biggest public employer after expanding its workforce by 5.2 percent to 410,700 in 2024, up from 390,400 a year earlier.
“The Teachers Service Commission has consistently remained the largest public service employer, registering the highest growth in employment at 5.2 per cent,” SRC said in its latest bulletin.
“Employees increased from 390,400 in 2023, to 410,700 employees in 2024.”
Fresh figures from the Third Quarter Wage Bill Bulletin place ministries and extra-budgetary agencies second with 236,700 workers, while counties trail with 226,500 staff.
The surge in hiring has pushed Kenya’s public payroll beyond the one million threshold, with the overall headcount climbing to 1.023 million employees in 2024.
Yet even with more staff on the books, the public wage bill burden is expected to ease. The SRC projects the national government’s wage bill will shrink from Sh153.71 billion in Q2 to Sh130.79 billion in Q3, lowering the wage-bill-to-revenue ratio from 28.02 percent to 26.46 percent.
Counties are also expected to post relief, with spending dropping from Sh63.63 billion to Sh54.66 billion, cutting their ratio from 43.34 percent to 35.38 percent.
The regulator linked the trend to tighter fiscal controls, pointing out that although the wage bill is still rising in absolute figures, the growth rate has moderated 4.8 percent in FY 2022/23 and 6.37 percent in FY 2023/24.
In the same quarter, SRC handled 30 requests from public institutions seeking approvals worth Sh411.7 million.
It only cleared Sh281.4 million, or 68.4 percent, with allowances and benefits requests dominating at 76 percent.
