The Covid -19 Pandemic and Unemployment in Kigali City, Rwanda

The Covid-19 pandemic led individuals, business community, nations and the world in general to many problems. In the context of Rwanda, Covid-19 pandemic spread rapidly within a short period of time resulted into serious problems including unemployment. This paper aims to assess the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on employment situation in Kigali city, Rwanda focusing on how Covid -19 pandemic cases have been spread in Kigali city, finding out the most affected economic sectors by Covid-19 pandemic and assessing the extent to which Covid-19 pandemic caused unemployment in Kigali city, Rwanda. The study targeted unemployed and laidoff people due to Covid-19 pandemic from whom 96 respondents were selected using Alain Bouchard formula. Data were collected using questionnaire, interview and documentation and analysed using descriptive statics frequency, percentage and Pearson correlation test. The main findings indicated that the spread of Covid-19 has been rapid in kigali city whereby Covid-19 positive cases had reached on 3,452 in Kigali City for the period of almost 9 months. Unemployment caused by Covid-19 pandemic affected people in Kigali city from various sectors in different ways. Construction; education; domestic works; betting games and marriage activities; and industry, tourism and restaurant have been respectively revealed the most affected economic sectors by unemployment due to Covid-19 pandemic in Kigali City. The people in informal and private sectors are the most affected. Moreover, the statistical evidence reveals a significant positive correlation between covid-19 pandemic and unemployment in Kigali city. This implies that the more the Covid-19 confirmed positive cases, the more the cases of unemployment (laidoffs and forced unpaid leaves). There is hence a need for public-private partnership to put in place the measures that can protect people working in informal and private sectors as they are the most affected.