Tech company, Andela, has sacked over 400 of its employees. 250 are from Nigeria and Uganda, with an additional 170 potentially impacted in Kenya.
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the firm, Jeremy Johnson, announced this today saying the move was neccessary for restructuring of the company’s talent pool in line with global market demands.
The company said, “Today, we are announcing that we are closing the D0 program in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. Moving forward, we will be focusing D0 training efforts on our pan-African hub in Rwanda. In addition, we will be letting go of approximately 250 Andelans in Nigeria and Uganda, with an additional 170 potentially impacted in Kenya, who we don’t believe we’ll be able to find meaningful work for over the next year”.
The tech company however revealed plans to hire an additional 700 experienced engineers by the end of 2020.
Going forward, we will hire another 700 experienced engineers by the end of 2020 in order to keep up with demand from our partners. To continue creating junior engineering talent at scale, we will invest in the Andela Learning Community, through which we’ve already trained more than 30,000 learners in software engineering fundamentals.
Over the next three years, we plan to cultivate more than 100,000 engineers across the continent who will, in time, contribute to the growth of their local tech ecosystems as well as the broader technology community.
Andela Nigeria Country Director, Omowale David-Ashiru, said, “We’re proud of what we have achieved at Andela in five short years; we know the impact we have made both in Nigeria and globally. However, we have reached an inflection point that has required a change in strategy, which is why we are announcing these changes to our talent strategy. “Our immediate focus is on providing practical support to those employees who are impacted by the restructure, and we will provide them with the resources they need to succeed in their next steps.”
