Zimbabwe’s brain drain worsens as 36,000 granted UK work Visas in a year
ZIMBABWE continues to lose its skilled manpower to other countries as 35 938 skilled workers, mostly in the Health sector migrated to the United Kingdom in just a year.
Although reasons for emigrating to other countries vary, Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe this week said between June 2023 and June this year, close to 36,000 Zimbabweans had been granted working visas by the UK mostly as health care workers.
Locally, healthcare workers earn an average of US$255 per month while the least experienced stands to take home about US$2,500 in the UK.
Thousands more have left en-masse to Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand where the working and living conditions are better.
Kazembe said that the country had not been spared from the devastating effects of brain drain as nurses and doctors have emigrated from Zimbabwe en-masse.
“Statistics from the United Kingdom revealed that between June 2023 and June 2024, 35 938 Zimbabweans were granted work visas to the UK, mostly as health care workers.
“It may be a challenge to tame this emigration pattern as reasons for such vary,” Kazembe told International Organisation for Migration (IOM) director general Amy Pope, the first IOM DG to visit Zimbabwe in several decades this week.
Zimbabwe’s health sector is mismanaged and this has been worsened by the country’s economic collapse.
Zimbabwe is on WHO’s red list of countries with dire health service shortages.
“However, it is equally possible to replenish lost and or required skills through sound policies,” added the minister. NewZW
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