UNITED KINGDOM-BASED recruitment agency, WorkReel, is expanding into Zimbabwe to help businesses and employees use newer methods to employ people and to seek jobs.
As of September, 2023, about 3,12 million people were employed in Zimbabwe out of the 8 955 312 working-age population, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat).
However, most of that employment is in the informal sector with the official employment standing at about 1,55 million based on the third quarter ZimStat labour statistics. Unemployment remains high in the country due to an unrelenting economy recession.
Speaking to NewsDay Business, WorkReel Africa Region head Stephen Mashingaidze urged businesses to use artificial intelligence (AI) in its recruitment processes.
“AI will primarily speed up talent identification because we make employment as we are creating employment using videos instead of using traditional tools. This can minimise the use of traditional tools, especially in Africa and can be achieved through investing in the innovation of information technology (IT) infrastructure,” he said.
“Currently we have an office at Batanai Mall which you know is also used for SMEs (small and medium enterprises). Our main office is in the UK and I’m the head of African Region.”
AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems, which can be applied to expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition and machine vision.
“The investment that we are looking at now is minus/plus US$5 million and currently we are at about US$50 000 estimation, the investment will help us with infrastructural development,” Mashingaidze said.
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This development will allow WorkReel to scale up its operations.
“We are looking at investing in IT infrastructure, primarily in Artificial Intelligence, as the country is pushing towards the innovation hub conference as we understand the country does not have quantity to build. So, we are partnering with people around the world like UK, Australia and African countries,” Mashingaidze said.
He said WorkReel was going to help employees and employers in terms of development in IT innovation and this can be done through learning.
“AI has become increasingly important in today’s world as it has the potential to revolutionise many industries, including healthcare, finance, education and more. The use of AI has already improved efficiency, reduced costs and increased accuracy in various fields,” Mashingaidze said.
