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Harare - Zimbabwean companies are losing as much as US$107.5m per year in wages and productivity through mental health or stress-related absence from work, according to a survey.
According to a survey by Zimbabwe-based Industrial Psychology Consultants entitled Distress and other Mental Health Problems in the Zimbabwean Working Population, close to 4 in 10 working Zimbabweans experience symptoms of distress representing over 43% of the 707 employees who responded to the survey.
Said the survey: “27.3% of the working population is experiencing depression symptoms namely feeling that things are meaningless, and they can’t see a way of escaping from their situation.”
The survey also revealed that at 27.3%, the manufacturing sector has the highest prevalence of depression symptoms.
The survey, which was conducted in July, comes at a time when Zimbabwe is grappling with its worst economic challenges since dollarisation.
Many firms closed down, wages not paid
The last time the economy was this bad was in 2008, when the country was forced to abandon its own currency to tame rampant inflation that had reached astronomical levels of about 231 million percent.
Most Zimbabwean manufacturing companies have closed shop, with capacity utilisation estimated to be below 30%.
At least 624 companies across the country have retrenched over the past four years and a significant number have closed down, rendering thousands of people jobless.
Most companies are also failing to pay wages while government no longer has fixed pay dates for civil servants.
