Zimbabwe will soon start "exporting" thousands of nurses it cannot employ.

The government said it had completed crafting modalities for exporting the jobless but qualified nurses to other countries across the world.

Nursing schools continue churning out nurses, but with soaring unemployment and a broke government the new health workers struggle to get jobs.

Despite the planned exports the country's hospitals face critical staff shortages.

Zimbabwe hopes to send its unemployed nurses to Swaziland, Lesotho, Trinidad and Tobago, under a government to government agreement.

Deputy Health Minister, Douglas Mombeshora says all paper work has already been submitted to the Attorney General's office.

"When the AG's office finishes scrutinising and approves the document, we will then submit it to cabinet for final approval," he said.

Official statistics reveal that in 2010, only 374 nurses were employed from 1,516 trained while 607 got jobs in 2011 from 1,044 who trained.

Currently, 1 579 nurses are unemployed.

According the ministry the idea to export health personal is meant to re-coup funds used in training the nurses.

But there is a catch, the government will withhold practicing certificates for nurses and countries employing them will be required to remit their pensions to Zimbabwe.

Labour experts claim that government's failure to employ bonded nurses was illegal.

Beginning in 2000, as the economy took a nosedive, medical personnel – particularly nurses – left the country to countries like the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand, where they received attractive remuneration packages.

This forced the government to introduce bonding in 2007 to retain medical professionals, to recoup the money used in their training.