The Rwandan New Times newspaper is reporting on a Rwandan Prime Ministerial speech to business development advisors. PM Murekezi reportedly said that the country is aiming to create 200,000 off-farm jobs each year.
That seems like a lot, so I did some fact checking. Rwanda has a recent working-age population of 5.8 million, with a ratio of employment to the working age population of 0.710 and a share of agriculture in total employment of 0.753. I think that means that the present agricultural population is 3.1 million, and the non-agricultural population is 1.0 million.
200,000 extra off-farm jobs a year is a growth of 20 percent in the non-agricultural population. The non-agricultural population would be larger than the agricultural population within six years. If we allow for population growth, the results are still pretty close.
These are heady days for the development of Sub-Saharan countries, and the prime minister (or his speech-writers) have better information than me. But all the same, that figure still makes me pause.
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