Others risk their lives by crossing crocodile-infested rivers or buying a passage in unventilated container trucks. Britain deports an average of five Zimbabweans on the daily flights from Harare to London, according to the local state-owned Business Herald . Businessmen blame the high levels of emigration on the poor economic conditions and the uncertain economic situation prevailing in Zimbabwe. With half the country's workforce unemployed, a record inflation rate of 56 percent and widespread poverty, the drain of skilled and professional and unskilled emigrants is gaining pace. The labour migration has hurt Zimbabwe's already ailing economy by diminishing the supply of locally available skilled labour.
Experts say the health sector, higher education and engineering sectors have been hardest hit.
Farai Zizhou, an economist with the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industry, says that if Zimbabweans saw that the country's leadership was taking concrete action to solve the country's economic problems, people were unlikely to run away to seek opportunities elsewhere. Zimbabwe contributed 90 percent of South Africa's immigration from Africa in the early 1980s, and this was due mainly to post-independence white emigration, according to the International Labour Organisation.