Survey: National unemployment at 16.7%

Rwanda’s unemployment stands at 16.7 per cent according to latest statistics from the National Institute Statistics of Rwanda. The figure follows a labour force survey done by the institute in partnership with the ministry of public service and labour beginning last year.

Monday, October 09, 2017
Yusuf Murangwa, the General Director of NISR, speaks as finance minister Claver Gatete looks on. (Timothy Kisambira)

Rwanda’s unemployment stands at 16.7 per cent according to latest statistics from the National Institute Statistics of Rwanda.

The figure follows a labour force survey done by the institute in partnership with the ministry of public service and labour beginning last year.

The results of the survey were released Monday morning at the ministry of finance and economic planning.

The new numbers are also based on new definition of employed and unemployed which the statisticians caused the numbers to go up.

Under the new definition, work and employment are recognized differently. For instance, work for own use production such as agriculture is not considered as employment.

Youth unemployment stands at 21 per cent.

Out of over 11.6 million Rwandans, the statistics show that 6.7M are working age population (16 years and above).

However  of the working age population,  about half of them are out of labour force due to factors such as  retirement, illness, students leaving only 3.6 M are part of the labour force (employed or unemployed.)

According to the numbers, only 606,997 people in the country are unemployed as of February this year.

 The definition of employed in the survey was people who have worked for pay or profit at least an hour in 7 days or absent from work.