Air Zimbabwe has laid off 200 employees - nearly half its workforce - to try to stay in the air, Zimbabwe state media reported Wednesday, as the country's economic troubles deepen. Under long-time leader President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe has suffered mass unemployment, a collapse of many public services and banknote shortages as foreign investors have fled.
According to Bloomberg News, the southern African country's economy has halved since 2000. "We have retrenched 200 employees out of the 424," Air Zimbabwe chairman Chipo Dyanda was quoted as saying in the Herald newspaper. "The organisation is over-bloated."