Andela Explains Why Another 135 Employees Were Laid Off

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

About 135 staff members of Andela have been laid off in Nigeria and four other countries.

According to a report by Nairametrics, those affected are some of their employees in the United States of America, Egypt, Kenya, and Uganda.

A spokesperson with the company who confirmed the development said while there were no layoffs in Ghana and Rwanda, the possibility of this happening in the near future abounds.

He however said no Andela software engineer was affected by the headcount reduction exercise except those in other departments of the firm.

This is not the first time Andela would laid off some of its staff in recent times. In September 2019, the Pan-African tech accelerator firm, sent home as many as 420 junior engineers across its operations in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda as part of its restructuring plans to meet growing market demands.

The last exercise affected about 250 junior engineers from Andela’s Nigerian and Ugandan offices, the rest were from its Kenyan office.

But explaining the reason for their latest decision, Andela said the firm was forced to take this course of action as a measure to navigate the negative economic impacts wrought by the Coronavirus pandemic.

“Similar to so many other technology companies around the world, we are not immune to the challenges of COVID-19, and the current global economic market requires us to conserve resources,” an excerpt of the firm’s statement reads.

“To navigate the current environment, we have taken some pretty significant measures, including implementing a 3-month staff hiring freeze, re-evaluating all consulting and software spend. Even with our best efforts, it was clear that we were going to have to reduce our headcount globally.”

Another source within the firm has also said that on Tuesday, May, 2020, Jeremy Johnson, Andela’s Chief Executive Officer, had sent out e-mail to staff announcing the impending layoffs much to the dismay of those employees who were affected.

In a email sent by him, which Nairametrics has seen, Johnson made it clear that this was a very tough decision. However, it had to be made nonetheless, because the company’s survival post COVID-19 depends on it.

However, Johnson noted that the company had tried all along to salvage the situation until it became clear that the decision had to be made.

According to Johnson, the firm’s sole reason for the staff reduction exercise was because Andela’s revenue streams have been impacted negatively by the pandemic leading to a slower growth been projected for the meantime. And with slower growth comes lower revenue.

It is, therefore, in a bid to take care of this problem that the decision was made to reduce head counts across departments.

Andela’s CEO has also hinted the company’s top management earlier of an impending slashing of salaries across board. However, that course of action was decided against because they determined that the savings did not warrant the disruption to the lives of the firm’s entire employee base.

It was learnt that all of the company’s directors (who were not affected by the layoffs) have agreed to salary cuts ranging from 10% to 30%.

Andela, co-founded in 2014 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, has garnered global media attention and attracted a lot of investments including a $180 million from some Venture Capital firms that include Chan Zuckerberg Initiatives led by Mark Zuckerberg’s spouse, Priscilla Chan.

Besides its offices in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda, the company also has offices in New York, Egypt, Rwanda.