Rwanda – Understanding the 3.4% unemployment rate

Rwanda’s unemployment rate is at just 3.4 per cent, a statistic that recently generated heated debate on social media. Some believe the country’s unemployment rate is far higher. So how does the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda (NISR) compute unemployment figures? The 3.4 per cent means that just over 3 people out of 100 are in need of jobs but cannot find one.

Arriving at the figures

James Byiringiro, a principle statistician at NISR, says the figures were specifically drawn from the 2012 Rwanda Housing and Population Census. During the census any person who had been looking for work in the past seven days prior to the exercise was considered unemployed.

“Individuals above the age of 16 who were job-searching (and available at the time of an opening) were considered as unemployed,” Byiringiro explains.

NISR officials say they used face-to-face interviews and questionnaires that were distributed among the respondents, to arrive at the figures. Byiringiro adds that most of the employed respondents were doing some kind of subsistence farming, and “they contributed a lot to the final figures”.

“Rwanda is an agro-based economy, so we considered people who were doing all sorts of farm work,” Byiringiro says.

He explains that because most people with farms live in villages, the rate unemployment was minimal in rural areas compared towns.

According to the figures, 7 per cent of the urban dwellers are unemployed compared to only 2 per cent in rural areas.

According to the labour force participation report from the 2012 NISR survey, unemployment rate hit an ‘all time high’ of 3.4 per cent from 1.20 per cent in 2006, as compared to a slight 1.87 per cent increase in 2001.

“Unemployment is also high among the educated, especially secondary school leavers and graduates,” Byiringiro adds. Byiirigiro says the rate of unemployment increased during the census period compared to previous years because the census was carried out in August, when most people were not working on farm.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Understanding the 3.4% unemployment rate – The New Times | Rwanda.