Rwanda : Employment in Rwanda.

Employment in Rwanda has not been stable because of the different factors affecting it which include people migrating from one place to another, the age of the people involved in working, the type of work they do among other factors.

According to the Integrated Household Living conditions survey [EICV3], a third in the survey which started in 2000/2001 to monitor poverty and living conditions of the people of Rwanda, it shows that the population of people aged 16years and above has increased from 3,684,000 since the EICV1 survey which took place in 2000/01 to 5,888,000 in the EICV3 of 2010/11, which indicates a population growth of about 2.2million people in the country hence a growth in the country’s employment rate.

With the high mobile labor force in Rwanda, many people have disappeared from their age cohort as it was given in the demographic health survey and the EICV1.This report mainly dealt with people of 16years,since the working age of Rwanda starts with 16years.

Today in Rwanda, people aged 16yrs and above have kept the employment rates of Rwanda high at a rate of 84% which has kept a good pace with the ever increasing population of the country over the past 10yrs.

In the report of the EICV3, it collected data depending on the jobs Rwandans did over the 12months period which was referred to as the economic activity, and those they did over the past seven days which was referred to as the current economic activity.

In the EICV1, it indicated that people who were employed over the 12 month period were 3,571 whereas in the EICV2 they were 4,299.this showed an increase of 728 persons in the working sector.

In the EICV3, Rwanda saw a drop in the employment rate of which 197 persons remained unemployed in the seven days’ period of time.

The employment rates in Rwanda are also taken to be high in the rural areas than in the urban areas especially in Kigali city which reflects the higher unemployment rates in the city and the higher economic inactivity still.

Since the EICVI up to the EICV3, many people have remained employed in the agriculture sector in Rwanda which is the 430000 people in the country. Hence a low increase in the employment rates in the country.

Again, in the EICV3 survey, over the past 10yrs, the fastest growth in the occupations has come from drivers and machine operator, semi-skilled operatives, Office clerks, and commercial sales workers but all these are still dominated by the agricultural workers with a 73% of them.

With casual employment which is based on the length of a contract that an employee has, the survey did not contain any data on contract length. This is because most Rwandans are paid on a daily basis which sets a low bound estimate for the number of casual workers in the country.

However, many Rwandan do receive employees’ benefits like health benefits of 14.5%, paid vacations of 14.5%, or get their pensions of 18.5%, which shows that the number of casual workers maybe higher than the one’s paid on a daily basis hence a high increase in the casual workers employment rate.

Since many Rwandans are unqualified, about 64%, this makes employment rate lower especially to people who have secondary school qualification since there are the ones who stay looking for jobs and are still studying. Many people in the agricultural sector are unqualified, and the people who work in the non- farm sector are the ones’ who are qualified and the ones’ who earn wages from the work the do.

You find that many Rwandan work on their own farms but this has changed since 10yrs back and now employment on farms has grown by 14% per year whereas that in the non-farm establishments has grown by 12% per year and non-farm employment grown by 14%.

The employment rates in Rwanda has also created the poverty status in the country whereby many workers whose main job is on the farms are much more likely to be poor than those who do not work on a farm. This has kept a difference of 15% of the people where 61% are the people who work for a wage on a farm and 46% do work on their own farms.

With the above factors, Rwanda has always seen a tremendous change in its employment rates which factors if worked upon can be favorable to increase the employment rates in the country hence fight the poverty that exists.