THOUSANDS of job seekers, desperate for employment braved Wednesday's heat to attend government's job fair at the Museum of African Liberation in Harare.
The job fair, announced last week, is meant to create a pool of potential employees for government to tap from.
With Zimbabwe's various universities churning out thousands every year into its congested employment market, an equal number has been left battling for the few jobs available.
Most of those who were at the fair constitute part of Zimbabwe's unemployed.
Those who spoke to NewZimbabwe.com said they could not afford to miss the opportunity as it was one of the very few chances for them to be employed.
Despite scorching heat which peaked at 34°C, queues meandering across the venue and network challenges during registration most said they were prepared to spend the day.
One of them had to be ferried to hospital after fainting while many lost shoes in the melee that ensued whenever police officers and Public Service Commission (PSC) officials directed some into a hall from which they were working.
"I arrived around 11 am and got into a long queue that took me about two hours to get to the main door," said one Accounting graduate who was at the fair.
"When I got to the door the officials were letting us through in batches of ten.
"Inside were several queues too. I was directed to register but the process took about 30 minutes due to huge volumes and network challenges.
"After that, I joined another queue to hand in my CVs, sign forms and get a certain registration number so that they would contact me if they have a job offer.
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"We were then asked to register online as the system was said to be congested plus the person who was registering us had a laptop which they would at times take and use for other purposes."
Some of Zimbabwe's graduates are now opting for short health-related courses that have become attractive to economically stable countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia.
These courses have become a gateway out of Zimbabwe, where they are fleeing its economic crisis, political turmoil and poor administration for greener pastures.
A huge number are either idle, seated at home doing nothing or surviving on vending at busy corners in some of Zimbabwe's busy cities.
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