The Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) Monday said the 2022 Population and Housing Census to be held from 21 to 30 April will establish the country’s employment and unemployment rates.
Zimstat will be using the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) definition of employment hence the inclusion of sex work as “employment.”
In Zimbabwe currently sex work remains illegal.
Mr Chikeya said anyone involved in profit generating projects, including sex work, will be considered to be a worker.
“If we get our working population then we are going to classify them into a labour force where we have people who are employed and those who are not employed. So, we define employment as work performed for others in exchange of pay, profit or family gain. So, those who are employed are employees for example, a statistician is an employee of a certain company and those who are self-employed or we can call them on account workers for instance vendors can be called on account workers, because they are doing work for profit,” said Mr Chikeya.
“You can also talk about sex workers; they are doing work for profit or family gain. We also have employers who also fall under the bracket of employment.”
“But work excludes activities that do not produce goods and services. Activities such as begging and stealing we cannot consider that as work because they are not producing goods or a service,” he said
