In an interview with Sunday News on the sidelines of a breakfast meeting in Bulawayo on Friday, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Patrick Zhuwao said his ministry is working on strategic framework to deal with underemployment which he said must be ready by 1 December.
Underemployment refers to a situation where workers who are highly skilled are working in low paying jobs, workers who are highly skilled but working in low skill jobs and part-time workers who would prefer to be full time. Said Zhuwao:
We are developing a strategic framework which will assist us to resolve under-employment. Zimbabwe at almost full employment is at 95 percent but that employment is primarily made up of people in the informal sector with about 84 percent of the employment coming from the informal sector which I regard as unrecorded unemployment. This coming week we are going to develop the concept note and then engage stakeholders. In the second week, we will have national mobilisation around the concept and the third week we will have provincial outreach programmes to understand how we can put the strategy into effect. In the fourth week, we will get report back on the provincial consultations. Ultimately by the last week of November, the framework should be released before the Christmas break. The strategic framework will be used for the labour sector from 2018 – 2023.
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