Labor market in Rwanda

Rwanda's labor market covers the people available for work, the organizations demanding labor, the ways workers find opportunities and the changes affecting sectors and skills. The 2025 Labour Force Survey counted 8,541,210 people of working age, defined in this dataset as age 16 or older. The labor force contained 5,449,044 people, including 4,772,704 employed people and 676,340 unemployed people. The labor-force participation rate was 63.8%, the employment-to-population ratio was 55.9%, and 3,092,165 people were outside the labor force. Underutilization affected 3,883,348 people, or 56%, and time-related underemployment affected 36.1%. People actually worked a median of 27 hours per week, compared with 36 usual hours. The latest Q2 2026 figures were seasonal: the working-age population was about 8.7 million, employment was 4,706,239, labor-force participation was 62.1%, the employment-to-population ratio was 53.8%, unemployment was 13.4% and underutilization was 59.7%. The annual 2025 baseline is better for comparisons across time. Work is concentrated across agriculture, services and industry. In 2025, market-oriented agriculture excluding subsistence food production accounted for 39.1% of employment, services for 44.4% and industry for 16.5%. Off-farm main jobs increased from 2.049 million in 2019 to 2.908 million in 2025, and total off-farm main jobs rose from 2.670 million in 2024. Services increased from 42.9% to 44.4% between 2024 and 2025, while industry remained approximately stable. Wholesale and retail trade plus vehicle repair employed about 714,000 people, construction 423,000, transport and storage 332,000, manufacturing 267,000, education 203,000, accommodation and food services 186,000, and household employers 172,000. Finance employed about 42,000 people and information and communication technology about 17,000. Access differs by place. The EICV7 workforce-to-population ratio was 72.1% in urban areas and 83.4% in rural areas. The City of Kigali recorded the lowest value at 73.0%, while other provinces ranged from about 78% to 85%. Rural participation is strongly connected to subsistence agriculture; urban labor markets have a stronger off-farm and service focus. District-level labor-market figures can be examined through the Labour Force Survey and the Labour Market Information System, or LMIS, but Rwanda does not have one uniform access rate or guaranteed chance of finding work in every district. Education improves participation, but it does not remove skills mismatch. More than 80% of the labor force has primary education or less. In 2025, unemployment was 11.3% among people with no education, 12.6% among those with primary education, 14.7% after lower secondary education, 16.0% after upper secondary education and 10.2% among university graduates. The rate for technical and vocational education and training, known as TVET, was 12.7%, compared with 13.4% for general education. The National Employment and Skills Strategy 2024–2029 identifies demand in telecommunications, electronics, manufacturing and mining, while noting an oversupply in areas such as business, hospitality, education and law. Career guidance, upskilling and reskilling remain limited. Income varies by sector and work status. Among paid employees, the monthly median cash income from the main job was 39,000 Rwandan francs (RWF), while the mean was 83,110 RWF. About 35.7% earned less than 30,000 RWF per month and 20.8% earned at least 100,000 RWF. Average hourly income was 723 RWF overall, 408 RWF in agriculture, 849 RWF in industry and 1,100 RWF in services. Average monthly income was 33,326 RWF in agriculture, 104,169 RWF in industry and 141,653 RWF in services. These figures apply to the measured income groups and do not represent a guaranteed wage for every worker. Informal work is central to the labor market. Informal employment accounted for 91.8% of all employment in 2025 and 86.7% of non-agricultural employment. Informal work often involves no written contract, irregular pay, limited benefits and weaker access to social protection. Formal labor governance and compliance fall within the responsibilities of the Ministry of Public Service and Labour, commonly known as MIFOTRA, but no institution automatically matches every job seeker with a job. People commonly find work through informal channels. In 2025, friends, relatives and intermediaries accounted for 46% of reported job-finding methods, checking factories or worksites for 33.5%, financial assistance to start a business for 9.2%, applications to potential employers for 7.9%, street recruitment for 7.7% and job advertisements for 4.6%. Formal and digital alternatives include the Kora Job Portal, LMIS, the Rwanda Development Board internship portal and the Graduate Tracking System, which tracks graduate outcomes. These services are available to relevant job seekers, employers or graduates, but the reviewed evidence does not establish a universal access fee, guaranteed placement or standard processing time. Migration also affects labor supply. In 2025, migrants numbered 1,943,592, or 13.9% of the total population, and migrant workers numbered 968,935. Internal migrants numbered 1,833,598 and international migrants 109,994. Internal migrant workers had a labor-force participation rate of 77.7%, an employment-to-population ratio of 69.1% and unemployment of 11.1%; international migrant workers recorded 67.1%, 57.0% and 15.0% respectively. Work-seeking accounted for 20.5% of migration reasons, returning or building or renting a home for 19.5% and finding a job for 16.4%. The largest internal movement corridors included Southern Province to Kigali, with 150,357 people, and Eastern Province to Kigali, with 139,364. Among international migrants, 53.9% came from Uganda, 16.4% from other countries, 11.1% from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6.4% from Burundi and 5.0% from Tanzania. Rwanda's Labour Mobility Policy focuses on safe and regular mobility, worker protection, recognition of skills, bilateral cooperation and diaspora or return skills. The National Strategy for Transformation 2 targets 1,250,000 productive and decent jobs from 2024 to 2029. The National Employment and Skills Strategy for 2024–2029 supports demand-led skills, workplace learning, private-sector links and job matching, with emphasis on higher-productivity agriculture, off-farm work, services, digital business services, industry and TVET. The target is a policy direction, not evidence that the jobs have already been created.