ABSTRACT
Agroprocessing is one of the important industries in Zimbabwe. According to the census of production of 1988-89, the food, beverage and tobacco industry employed 40,000 people in 1988, corresponding to 22 per cent of total industrial employment. Most of the employment is located in the large towns, 75 per cent in Harare and Bulawayo alone. Organizationally too, the industry is concentrated in a small number of large parastatal and private enterprises. Until the late 1980s, employment was almost stable. From 1985 to 1989, employment in most sub-sectors grew a little, while employment in milling increased by 900, but decreased in tobacco by 1,000 and in canning by 400. During the early 1990s, employment must have gone down due to a lack of raw materials following the drought, a shrinking home market caused by both drought and structural adjustment, and increased competition from the small-scale sector, though we have no detailed information on this.
