• National Employment Programme in offing

• Targeting creation of 200,000 per year

• Youth and women to be given special consideration

Rwanda joins the rest of the world in celebrating the International Labour Day every year on 1st May. The International Labour Day started during the industrial revolution in the 19th century.

The growth and spreading out of many industries drove the owners’ urge of maximizing profits at the expense of workers. Because of the profit motivation, workers were forced to operate in unconventional ways, their human rights were abused with very low wages compared to the how long they worked and how much they produced.

All the above factors pushed workers to strive and change the situation through creating workers’ associations. In 1889 a decision was taken to celebrate workers’ day.

Since then, many countries celebrate this day on 1st May every year.

On this day, Rwanda takes this opportunity to take a look into how work is done and its contribution towards the economic development of the country, putting much emphasis on the strategies of creating more productive jobs.

Rwanda celebrates this year’s International Labour Day on 1st May 2014 as usual with the theme "Work for Self- Reliance.”