ILO Zim’s jobless rate illusionary

THE United Nation’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) has claimed Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is 5,42%, a revelation likely to be well-received by clueless Zanu PF mandarins happy to clutch at straws.

THE United Nation’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) has claimed Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is 5,42%, a revelation likely to be well-received by clueless Zanu PF mandarins happy to clutch at straws.

It is an undeniable fact Zimbabwe’s real unemployment rate hovers over 90% due to the prevailing political and economic crisis. So for any reasonable person to believe the ILO claim is tantamount to believing that the Portuguese built Khami Ruins.

Be that as it may, citizens need to be schooled to understand what unemployment means and what type of unemployment is referred to in the ILO report. The statistics they refer to include people who are engaged in informal activities.

Almost everyone in Zimbabwe is doing some informal activity of some sort. So adding up the people engaged in informal activities, some of which are criminal in nature, gives that illusionary rate of 5,42% unemployment.

Zimbabwe, just like other banana republics, count subsistence farming as employment yet the definition of employment in ILO regulations does not cover subsistence farming.

As mentioned in yesterday’s Southern Eye Business, it boggles the mind why Zimbabweans are flocking to South Africa in search of jobs, a country the ILO report claims has an unemployment rate of more than 20% compared to Zimbabwe’s dubious unemployment rate of 5,42 %.

But development actors need to look further than these statistics and the contexts in which these figures were given. Many people in Zimbabwe participating in the informal sector are in fact, “underemployed” as opposed to being “employed” or being “unemployed” in its strictest sense.

Many people with degrees are driving taxis, selling vegetables, engaging in drug trading, selling secondhand clothes and dabbling in prostitution. This is “underemployment”. They are doing jobs that are far below their skillsets and qualifications.

Independent statistics indicate most people in the informal sector are earning less than $200 a month; far less than the poverty-datum line which is above $500 a month. So it is foolhardy for anyone, ILO, to say they are employed.

Being employed means being included to do work commensurate with your skills and earning a living wage or higher. What does it mean being employed when you earn below the poverty-datum line, when you can’t achieve basic human capabilities such as good health, education, adequate food, accommodation and live in abject poverty?

Related Topics