Andela an African based software engineering startup has announced that it has laid off 135 staff across four countries it operates in. Company CEO, Jeremy Johnson made this revelation in a video call to over 1,300 staff in seven countries — Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, and the USA.
The layoffs are not unique to Andela as the company reacts to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA its major customer base affected by the recession. Andela is projecting a decline in customers going forward. Jeremy Johnson said;
While our customer base has held up better than most, the majority have still been impacted by the economic downturn. Expectations for slow growth necessitate cost-cutting measures to ensure that we make it to the other side.
The layoffs that will affect over 10% of Andela’s staff will take effect from May 8, across all locations with the exception of Kenya and Egypt and the startup will provide severance packages that comes with four months of health coverage for the affected employees. Company directors who will survive the knife will be taking a salary cut ranging from 10 percent to 30 percent depending on seniority.
This is not the first time Andela is doing major layoff, in September last year, the company announced the laying off of over 400 junior developers across Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya.
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In February this year, the company also made a second wave of layoffs in an internal email issued on February 26th that confirmed that Andela had launched a voluntary exit programme targeting at all “idle” developers. The company requested Eng 1 and Eng 2 developers that were in its employ who are yet to secure placement to leave at their own will if they so wished. The voluntary exit option was being offered to all the software engineers who are still struggling to get placed at Andela Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya.
