By JOHNSON KANAMUGIRE

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A mini-survey by Rwanda Today around Kigali suburbs has revealed that many young people remain unemployed while employers have raised the bar for hiring.

It is no longer enough to have a university degree as employers are demanding not only qualifications but also more years of work experience from the jobseekers.

Rwanda Today found that employers, who sometimes find it hard to surf through hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications, raise the bar on required degrees while others only pick the ones who are willing to accept lower salaries.

Only public institutions with substantial recruitment budgets still organised job interviews at stadium and varsity halls to accommodate the big number of candidates for vacancies advertised on government’s recruitment platform.

Fresh graduates

Thousands of young Rwandans remain jobless despite having basic qualifications such a university degree with many struggling to make ends meet.

While local universities annually unleash thousands on the job market, the rate of job creation remains well below what is needed to absorb fresh graduates.

According to the latest Labour Force Survey Trends published in December 2018, bythe National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, the working age population — 16 years and above — increased from 6.8 million in August 2017 to around 7 million in August 2018.

Of the working age, 55.2 percent were in the labour force while 44.8 percent were out of the labour force. For those who were in the labour force, 14.3 per cent were unemployed.

During the same period, the labour force grew by around 276,000 people while the employed population grew by around 361,000 people.

“We were surprised when only one position of a driver attracted 1,116 candidates including two PhD holders and 30 people with master’s degree,” revealed a source that was part of the recruitment team at a local non-governmental organization (NGO) who asked for anonymity.

He told Rwanda Today that the NGO since halted the recruitment process as it would require a huge budget that was not readily available.

“You will find that many organisations, and companies in the private sector only advertise when they have narrowed down on the candidate they need, and the vacancy is announced just to formalise,” he added.

Cost of living

For fourth consecutive year, Dominique Nduwayo’s search for work has not paid off, and he has been struggling to cope with the rising cost of living in Kigali. A 2015 civil engineering graduate, he has so far competed in more than 15 vacancies without success. In his latest interview for the position of the officer in charge of infrastructure at Sector level, he competed with 750 candidates.

Mr Nduwayo is one of the hundreds young and educated but unemployed youth who turn up daily at Kigali employment service centre hoping to maximise chances of getting employed to no avail.

Having frequented the center regularly from 2017, and attended the annual job fair during which the centre links registered jobseekers with potential employers, he has nearly lost hopes.

“It is not the question of us not having the required skills, but the numbers of applicants are too high. Even getting an internship or training opportunity these days is impossible,” he said. He said his dream for a job almost materialised a few weeks ago when an acquaintance recommended him to a potential employer who needed a driver, but he lost the chance as he has no driving licence.

Several youths like him have been struggling to survive in the face of unemployment which they indicate keeps getting severe as more universities churn out many more graduates on the market.

Consolee Nzayisenga, an accountant who has been seeking employment since 2016 said she attempted the Kigali job fair “but nothing came out of the several prospective employers I registered with.

And this was not my problem alone, we wonder why they keep investing money in an initiative that doesn’t solve the problem.”

“We are not here to offer jobs; we only make sure that we maximize jobseekers’ chances of getting employed by way of training, provision of labour market information, career guidance and coaching  which we do through public private partnership with firms that specializes in areas most needed by the jobseekers,” reacted Aloys Niyonsaba, manager of Kigali employment service