Millions of Zimbabweans jobless- WFP

20 Septembre 2020

Harare, Zimbabwe, September 20 (Infosplusgabon) - Almost three quarters of the Zimbabwe urban workforce remains jobless owing to the deteriorating economy made worse by the COVID-19 restrictions, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

The joblessness can be blamed on the depreciating Zimbabwe dollar that has brought back hyperinflation and thus eroded wages leading to mass job layoffs.

Further, for those employed in the informal sector, the COVID-19 restrictions effectively cut alternative incomes as people were unable to go out to eke their daily living.

This has left millions unemployed as stated by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) in its 2019 Labour Force and Child Labour Survey released earlier this year.

In the report, out of the 14,215,809 population, the working age population considered to be 15 years and older stands at 8,101,515 of which 35.6 percent are living in urban areas.

“Prior to the onset of COVID-19, Zimbabwe was already suffer-ing from a dire economic crisis characterised by high rates of inflation and rising food costs,” said WFP, in its new Zimbabwe Country Strategic Plan (CSP) Update.

“As of 30 March 2020, when the Government of Zimbabwe declared a national lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, millions of people, particu-larly in urban domains, lost their primary source of income from informal livelihoods. Almost three quarters of the coun-try’s urban workforce, primarily made up of female traders, remains jobless.”

With growing economic woes and the inability of people to source alternative income from the informal sector millions of locals are now left without regular or alternative earnings.

Making matters worse is that the Zimbabwe government has not offered any significant support to this growing vulnerable group.

“lt (urban joblessness) can even be more than that if we consider that even those with work are severely under employed.  The government neglected to take care of the informal economy which contributes 60.6% of the economic activities. In addition 76% of jobs in this country are informal,” said Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions president Peter Mutasa in an interview.

“Thus the closure of the economy without care about the many workers in the informal economy destroyed livelihoods. Even many other formal economy businesses like transport,  hospitality,  and  others also closed and terminated contracts of employment for many workers.”

He added that as a result of the joblessness many workers and their families are starving in their homes.

“The situation is dire with many children sleeping hungry. Majority of informal economy workers and retrenched formal economy workers have resorted to breaking the regulations and trade whenever they can to avoid starvation,” Mutasa said.

“Our situation is a serious humanitarian crisis requiring urgent emergency food assistance.”

The situation is also no different in the formal sector as explained by Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe, the largest employer association in the southern African nation, president Israel Murefu told PANA.

“Our observation is that there were significant job losses arising from covid19 related disruptions to business and the attendant lockdowns which had the effect of reducing capacity utilisation in many if not all businesses,” Murefu said.

“Our estimate is that employment numbers in the national economy fell by about 20 to 30 percent especially among fixed term contract employees where redundancy or retrenchment procedures are not cumbersome on employers. From this perspective yes we could say joblessness has exacerbated in the formal sector.”

FIN/ INFOSPLUSGABON/ARD/GABON2020

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