Mthuli Ncube failed to deliver the promised 760,000 jobs, says ZCTU

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has challenged Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube over what it describes as his continued silence on the government's pledge to create 760,000 jobs under the National Development Strategy (NDS1).

NDS1, a five-year medium-term economic blueprint that ran from 2021 to 2025, succeeded the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) and was intended as the first step toward achieving an upper-middle-income economy by 2030. While the government has hailed the strategy as a success, the ZCTU says there is little clarity on how many formal jobs were actually created during the period.

A 2026 National Budget Critique prepared by the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), the ZCTU's think tank, highlighted that NDS1 aimed to generate at least 760,000 formal jobs over five years—an average of 152,000 jobs per year—but noted that the 2026 Budget makes no reference to this target.

"Decent work is the link between growth and poverty reduction, and its eventual eradication," the critique stated, adding that economic policies cannot be considered effective if they fail to deliver meaningful employment.

The labour body pointed to rising informalisation in the economy and the erosion of decent jobs as evidence of the disconnect between recorded growth and actual job creation. According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat), unemployment has risen from 14% in 2019 to 22% by the third quarter of 2023.

To address this gap, the ZCTU paper proposes adopting pro-employment budgeting (PEB), a concept promoted by the International Labour Organization (ILO). PEB advocates for moving beyond a singular focus on macroeconomic stability to include full employment as a core policy objective.

"This implies a dual mandate for macroeconomic managers: to act as guardians of stability—ensuring price and financial stability—and as agents of development—ensuring full employment," the paper said.

Pro-employment budgeting would also involve aligning all budgetary processes with employment objectives, checking that allocations explicitly promote job creation, and leveraging inter-sectoral linkages to maximize employment multipliers.

The ZCTU says such an approach is critical to translating economic growth into tangible outcomes for workers, ensuring that policy frameworks prioritize both stability and the creation of decent, formal employment.