2,500 jobs lost this year

Published: 15 July 2014

OVER 2,500 workers lost their jobs during the first six months of the year as the tight liquidity situation continues to affect the economy.

Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary-general Japhet Moyo told Business Chronicle yesterday that the figures were conservative as some companies did not handle the retrenchment issues through the Retrenchment Board.

He said according to figures ZCTU obtained from the Retrenchment Board 1,981 were retrenched between January and April while an additional of 601 lost their jobs between May and June.

"In our view, the situation this year is a bit better if compared to last year. During the same period last year we already had more people retrenched than this year's figure.

"At the close of the year in 2013, 9,500 workers were retrenched," he said.

The companies that have retrenched were in sectors that include commercial, furniture, clothing and textile, engineering, mining, timber processing, motor industry, and security.

Moyo said the companies have pointed out that the retrenchment exercise was necessitated by the need to restructure in light of the persistent liquidity crunch in the economy.

"Their reason for retrenching is uniform. They have cited the liquidity crunch thus they are cutting down on the number of their workers so that they come up with a lean staff to promote viability of their operations," he said.

He said business, labour and the government need to start discussing issues affecting the economy.

As a result of obsolete machinery susceptible to frequent breakdowns, low product demand, lack of working capital and raw materials among others factors, local firms are struggling.

"As business, labour and government, in our view as ZCTU we need to identify the challenges we are going through and find measures to reverse these challenges.

"We need to come up with measures that will attract investors into the economy and grow jobs in the country," said Moyo, adding that stakeholders also need to look at what issues were scaring away potential investors in the country.

When the inclusive government was formed in February 2009, the government targeted to increase capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector from an average of 10 percent to 60 percent by the end of the same year.

However, due to persistent challenges firms were struggling to improve capacity utilisation to competitive levels.

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries in its manufacturing survey report released in 2013, said capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector stood at 39,6 percent.
- chronicle