Financial Gazette (Harare)
Property Correspondent
28 October 2004
Harare — THE construction industry has retrenched over 136 000 workers in the past 10 years because of the lull in business.
Analysts told The Property Gazette this week that the industry was struggling to survive as evidenced by the poor set of financial results released by listed companies in the sector.
The industry, they said, had been dealt a hammer blow by the acute shortage of building materials and the drastic slump in disposable income caused by Zimbabwe's hyperinflationary environment, which has, however, started to respond positively to the current economic turnaround strategies.
A number of players in the construction industry are operating well below capacity because of the persistent shortage of foreign currency needed to import raw materials.
"Membership of the national employment council for the construction sector has continued to decline because of the lack of business and relentless price increases of building materials such as cement. The bad part of it is that most raw materials needed by the sector are imported," said a source.
Workers in the construction industry have been calling on their employers and the government to come up with survival strategies to rescue the sector from possible collapse.
Analysts this week predicted that a further decline in the sector might have further negative effects on capital projects that are currently on hold, as well as on rentals for residential and commercial properties, which have shot through the roof in the last two years.
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