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Last year, over 4 000 employees were retrenched in various sectors of the economy, including banking, mining and manufacturing, compared to 2 800 in 2010.

Low capacity utilisation, low product demand, obsolete machinery, lack of working capital and raw materials, are some of the factors that triggered most of the retrenchments.

Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paurina Mpariwa, said the figures were still too high considering that a lot of people were still informally employed.

“In the six months to June this year 1 140 employees lost their jobs. Of these employees, 620 were retrenched between January and March while 520 were laid off between April and June,” she said.

“This year’s figures have gone down a bit compared to 1142 retrenched between January and March 2011 as well as 523 between April and June of the same year.”

She said the tobacco industry provided the bulk of the retrenchees this year followed by the cement sector.

“We hope the economy continues to improve and possibly have less people retrenched this year compared to last year,” Ms Mpariwa said.

Commenting on same issue, Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe executive director John Mufukari said the economy was still experiencing difficulties.

“This is a clear indication that our economy is slowing down. There are not as many companies operating on the ground at the moment compared to last year.

“If you go around, few companies are operating, some are actually closed or underperforming, meaning that there are no more workers to retrench,” he said.

Several companies, including Air Zimbabwe, the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe, Jaggers and the majority of banks operating in the country retrenched in 2011. — New Ziana.