Labor market in Zimbabwe

The Q2 2025 Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) counted 8,539,402 working-age people in Zimbabwe. The labour-force participation rate was 47.1%, the employment-to-population rate was 37.3%, and 833,527 people were officially unemployed. The survey covered 9,650 households in 386 enumeration areas and recorded a 96.3% response rate. Its results describe the national household labour market, but they do not measure every short-term change in formal establishments or informal activity. Of those employed, 1,140,886 people were in formal employment, 1,863,695 worked informally and 182,017 were recorded in household own-use production or community work. Agriculture remains a major livelihood base. Employment is also shifting from agriculture toward low-productivity retail and informal services rather than mainly toward formal manufacturing or high-value services. A World Bank estimate places informal work at about 80% and median informal earnings at approximately USD 130 per month, but that estimate uses a different definition from the QLFS and should not be compared as an identical statistic. People enter work through formal wage employment, public service, private companies, own-account businesses, household enterprises, agriculture and family work. Direct applications and personal networks are common, alongside the public Employment Services and Promotion system and registered private employment agencies. Public employment services provided by the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare are free. They include job-seeker registration, notified-vacancy placement, job canvassing, career guidance, labour-market information and skills-for-employability programmes through provincial offices. Private agencies must register and renew annually. An agency application or inspection fee is USD 50; a job seeker cannot be charged a registration fee, and placement charges are limited to 5% of first-month remuneration for the job seeker and 20% of annual remuneration for the employer. Placement timing depends on the vacancy and employer because no universal service deadline is evidenced. Young people face particularly difficult access. Unemployment was 39.3% for ages 15 to 24 and 28.9% for ages 15 to 35 in the QLFS. The expanded unemployment measures were 58.2% and 46.1% for those age groups. Among people aged 15 to 24, 1,267,065, or 47.6%, were not in employment, education or training. The corresponding figure for ages 15 to 35 was 2,244,389, or 49.25%. Gender affects both participation and the type of work available. The 2022 Census recorded economic activity among 32.5% of people aged 15 and over, with 24.2% for women and 42.0% for men. Among economically active people, 85.2% were employed and 14.8% unemployed. Employed people included employees at 59.9%, own-account workers at 33.9%, employers at 3.0% and contributing family workers at 3.2%. Household responsibilities were a major reason for inactivity for 48.2% of women compared with 29.3% of men. In 2025, women performed about 3.6 hours of unpaid domestic work per day compared with 1.2 hours for men, a reported unpaid-work gender gap of 166.9%. Education improves access but does not remove the risk of mismatch. Higher education covered 9.5% of the working-age population, while secondary or equivalent education covered 63.1%. The labour-force participation rate was 76.8% for people with higher education, and their employment-to-population rate was 69.9%; the rate for people who had never attended school was 12.0%. Higher-educated workers represented 56.2% of formal-sector absorption in the supplied QLFS analysis. Average monthly earnings rose with education, from USD 126.21 for people who had never attended school and USD 152.25 for primary education to USD 232.83 for secondary education and USD 634.40 for higher education. Higher-education employment was concentrated in education at 80%, financial and insurance activities at 63.9%, and professional, scientific and technical activities at 63.5%. By field, social sciences, business and law accounted for 36.2% and engineering, manufacturing and construction for 20.7% of higher-education fields, while agriculture, forestry and fisheries accounted for 0.7%. Qualifications do not always match available work. The supplied analysis found that 54% of technicians and associate professionals were underqualified, while 71.8% of people in elementary occupations were overqualified. Service and sales work had the strongest reported match at 81.7%. Training pathways include agricultural colleges, TVET and vocational training centres, polytechnics, universities, apprenticeships and graduate-trainee programmes. Nine agricultural colleges offer eight Diploma ZNQF Level 5 programmes and one certificate programme at Level 4. Zimbabwe has 45 TVET centres and 25 satellite centres, with trades such as welding, plumbing, carpentry, furniture making, sewing, poultry and piggery. State-enterprise apprenticeship schemes include NRZ, ZESA and TelOne. The VTC Transformation Strategy covers 2025 to 2028, and the 2026 allocation for vocational-centre modernisation was ZiG 140.7 million; the Ministry's youth and vocational allocation was ZiG 1.7 billion. Trade testing and certification can restrict access for people without GCE O-Level qualifications. Formal employment is monitored separately from much of the wider labour market. The establishment-based Employment Volume Index was 98.89 in Q4 2025, down 1.50% from a year earlier, while the provincial index was 99.10. Harare carried a 30.50% weight and had an index of 102.73; Masvingo stood at 101.71, Mashonaland East at 92.36, Midlands at 95.72 and Bulawayo at 95.88. The index excludes or underrepresents informal work, agriculture, fishing and extraterritorial bodies, so it is not a complete employment measure. The Earnings Index reached 130.40, up 8.75% year on year, but the Real Earnings Index fell to 71.46, down 10.65%, showing that nominal increases were outweighed by inflation. The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare handles inspections, mediation, dispute resolution, labour-law training and registration of collective bargaining agreements and codes. National Employment Councils, trade unions and employers' organisations also shape sector-specific employment conditions. The Labour Amendment Act 2023 provides for equal remuneration for work of equal value and prohibits workplace violence and harassment. Where no sectoral agreement applies, statutory minimum wage instrument SI 186/2024 sets a general minimum of USD 150 per month; agriculture and domestic work are exempt, and a National Employment Council or collective bargaining agreement may set a different sectoral floor. Retrenchment procedures include written notice of at least 14 days to the works or employment council, the Retrenchment Board and the affected employee. Zimbabwe is both a labour-sending and labour-receiving country. The National Labour Migration Policy prioritises safe, orderly and regular migration, worker protection, recruitment regulation, access to social security, remittances and diaspora or skills transfer. The Q2 2025 QLFS recorded 42,632 labour migrants in Zimbabwe. Migration Resource Centres in Harare and Bulawayo provide counselling, job-search support, pre-departure assistance, return and reintegration services and anti-trafficking support. Brain drain, irregular migration, weak protection and exploitative or dangerous work remain documented risks. A World Bank reform scenario estimates that improved electricity, transport, irrigation, permits, cross-border trade, credit, land tenure, commercial justice and private investment could support up to 230,000 additional jobs by 2040. This is a scenario rather than a guaranteed outcome. Employment opportunities and earnings continue to depend on the balance between formal and informal work, sector demand, location, qualifications, gender, age and the protection available through the relevant institution or agreement.