THE agriculture sector remains dominant, still employing a large proportion of the population, Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) latest data has revealed.

By Own Correspondent

According to the Zimstat’s 2022 Population and Housing Census report, agriculture had the largest proportion of employment at 24 percent followed by wholesale and retail trade and manufacturing sectors with 17,2 percent and 10,7 percent respectively.

“The report shows that the manufacturing sector employs 10,7 percent, mining and quarrying 9,1 percent, administrative and support services 5,9 percent , education 5,8percent and construction 5percent.

“The country’s economic performance largely depends on developments in its agricultural sector,” the Zimstat report said. 

However, the country has 4,130,000 hectares of arable land, 25 percent of which is cultivated using animal and manual draught power. 

 Following the government's fast-track land reform program which began in 2000, irrigation infrastructure deteriorated, and most of the new landowners depend on rain rather than irrigation for their crops.

  As the weather pattern changes and droughts become more frequent, the country has failed to produce enough grain to meet domestic demand.  The government grants 99-year leases for agricultural land, but the protections of such leases are too weak to serve as collateral for financing, hindering agricultural investment.

Employment in the agriculture sector before the independence period hovered almost close to 500 000 with many more jobs created downstream in the value chain’s processing sector.

“The 2022 Population and Housing Census revealed that there were 9,046,415 persons in the working-age population constituting about 59.6 percent of the country’s total population. There were 2,935,707 persons in the labour force of whom 2,501,758 were employed and 433,949 were unemployed,” the report also observed.

Labour force participation was highest in the 40 to 44-year age group (46.8%). It increased with age, from 9.6 percent in the 15 to 19-year age group to 46.8 percent in the 40 to 44-years age group and thereafter declined to 9.7 percent in the 65 years and above.