Employee confidence in the country took a dip for the month of December, according to the latest Employee Confidence Index by Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd.

The Employee Confidence Index as at December 2013 stood at 44.03%, an 11.80% drop in Employee Confidence Index from the previous confidence levels of 58.83% (as observed in December 2012). The decline may be attributable to constrained performance of most companies during the course of last year.

With the emergence of reports of overpaid chief executives in the public sector, despite their firms' low productivity, employee confidence can be further expected to decline in the foreseeable future. The index gauges employee confidence in the economic environment obtaining at any given time during the course of the year. It also reflects general perceptions of the country's potential for economic recovery.

To this extent the macro-economic confidence index as at October 2013 stood at 22.30%.

"Only two in every 10 of the respondents indicated that they believe that economy was improving. 77.70% said that the economy is not improving.

"The 2013 Q4 results represent a 33.10% decline from the Q4 2012 positive responses to this question. In Q4 2012, 55.40% of the respondents expressed confidence in the economy improving," reads part of the report.

IPC managing consultant Memory Nguwi believes that the depressed employee confidence can have a negative fallout on efforts towards economic recovery.

"These results are reflective of what were are seeing in the broader economy.

Resuscitating the economy will require all stakeholders: government, employers and employees to work together. "With such low confidence levels turning around the economy will be more difficult than we expected," he said.

Earlier indexes show that Zimbabwe's highest confidence levels were observed in May 2010 when the ECI stood at 60.35%. Employee confidence fluctuated between April 2010 and December 2011 then began dropping successively since April 2012 to the end of last year.

Tags: Employees,