Despite a sharp fall in formal sector employment since the late 1990s, Zimbabwe’s
unemployment rate has remained below 10 per cent. While this figure has been met with disbelief in
Zimbabwe, the present paper finds that it is based on a consistent application of the international
definition of unemployment. However, the unemployment rate alone is only of limited utility to
assess a country’s labour market situation since it does not reflect the quality of employment. This
paper therefore argues that it is necessary to go beyond the employment / unemployment dichotomy
and to analyze the quality of employment. It does this on the basis of the 2004 Labour Force Survey
by applying two complementary concepts of informality: (i) the enterprise-based concept of
informality and (ii) the jobs-based concept of informality. The findings indicate that informal
employment, in particular, made a substantial contribution to overall employment and accounted for
just over 80 per cent of all jobs in 2004. However, cash incomes of informal workers were generally
extremely low and their working conditions poor. The paper closes by extracting the main findings
to inform debate among the ILO’s constituents and points out directions for future policy
formulation.