The richest person in the world Elon Musk, who completed a US$44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month, has now purged roughly half of Twitter’s 7,500 employee base.
The areas of Twitter impacted the most by Musk’s cuts include its product trust and safety, policy, communications, tweet curation, ethical AI, data science, research, machine learning, social good, accessibility, and even certain core engineering teams, according to The Verge.
Meta is also laying off 13 per cent of its staff, or more than 11,000 employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced.
Is this a new wave sweeping across the tech industry the world over? Because it has reached Kenya too.
Twiga Foods is downsizing its workforce in measures that will see those remaining lose some of the benefits that they have been enjoying, with effect from November 30, 2022.
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According to the company’s website, Twiga is a technology-driven company that connects consumers, vendors and suppliers, providing access to high-quality foods, products and retail services in Africa. Twiga Foods was founded in 2013 by Peter Njonjo and Grant Brooke. The company is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
The company, which previously disclosed it had a workforce of 1,000, says it has transitioned all its trade development representatives to agents as it changes its operations into an agency model for its sales team.
“As a result of this transition to the agent model, your employment with Twiga will terminate on November 30, 2022,” reads a communication to the staff.
- Agri-tech firm Twiga Foods is downsizing its workforce in measures that will see those remaining lose some of the benefits that they have been enjoying, coming months after the firm expanded its business with Sh1.6 billion investment.
- Twiga has also cut its staff per diem for the remaining staff from a high of Sh4,000 to Sh1,000 where accommodation has been provided on a single room bed and breakfast basis.
- The firm also has limited employees’ travel allowances to those whose work necessitates them to travel for more than 75 per cent of the month.
The company said those who will not accept appointment as agents will not be required to work as trade development representatives during the one-month notice period to enable them to seek alternative engagements.
According to Twiga, the transition was made in full compliance with the labour laws. Every impacted employee receives one month’s pay notice, termination pay of 15 days for every year worked, and pay for all outstanding leave days. The impacted employees have also been granted the first right of refusal to transition to the new model.
The company had in October stopped its engagement with expatriates who were offering different services across various departments.
Twiga has also cut its staff per diem for the remaining staff from a high of Sh4, 000 to Sh1, 000 where accommodation has been provided on a single room bed and breakfast basis.
The firm also has limited employees’ travel allowances to those whose work necessitates them to travel for more than 75 per cent of the month.
“The travel allowance will include all costs related to the movement of the employee in her/his personal vehicle to attend to the business of the company. Executives will identify employees in their team whose jobs fit the criteria for a travel allowance,” said the firm.
Twiga recently launched a new optimized sales agents’ program where current Trade Development Representatives (TDRs) will transition from permanent employees into independent agents on a 100 per cent commission basis.
“This transition creates an opportunity for entrepreneurship open to former sales agents and the general public. The benefit of this transition is that it allows for higher earnings based on the effort and enterprise of the agent,” said the firm.
Twiga added that this model has worked with other businesses like insurance and banking that have transitioned fully into Independent Agents in Kenya.
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Based on this new approach, the company anticipate the creation of over 1,000 new independent opportunities by the end of March 2023.
“Today, we have some agents earning close to Ksh 30,000 weekly, this is about scaling opportunities to the enterprising youth.”
In the same period, unemployment as a portion of the labour force fell from 2.9 per cent in 2013 to 2.6 per cent in Tanzania, while the rate went up in Ethiopia from 2.3 per cent to 3.7 per cent.
In Uganda, unemployment rose from 1.9 per cent to 2.9 per cent while in Rwanda, the rate rose from 1.2 per cent to 1.6 per cent.
Kenya’s unemployed is almost twice the 2.7 per cent East African average, with Rwanda having the lowest rate of unemployment at 1.6 per cent.
Tanzania, which had a higher rate of unemployment than Kenya in 2013, has lowered its rate below second-placed Ethiopia and third-placed Uganda in the region.
Kenya has a youth bulge, with 18-34-year-olds making up 25 per cent of the population and those below 15 making up 43 per cent.
According to The East African, this part of the population can be a blessing or a curse, for instance, fuelling crime and social unrest. Without jobs, insurance or pension when they advance in age, they will weigh heavily on the state’s health and social spending.
Meanwhile, according to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in their Economic Survey 2022, wage employment in the modern sector recorded a growth of 6.0 per cent to 2.9 million in 2021. The modern sector created a total of 172.3 thousand jobs. The number of self-employed and unpaid family workers engaged in the modern sector increased by 4.9 per cent in 2021 compared to a decline of 4.1 per cent recorded in 2020. The informal sector created 753.8 thousand jobs accounting for 81.4 per cent of the total jobs created outside of small-scale agriculture and pastoralist activities.
Further, employment in the public sector increased by 4.3 per cent to 923.1 thousand persons in 2021. The increase was mainly attributed to recruitment in the civil service for essential services. Public administration and defense; compulsory social security registered the highest growth of 5.9 per cent in 2021. Other economic activities in the public sector that realized growth in employment were Human health and social work activities, Education and Transportation and Storage which registered growths of 4.9, 4.4 and 4.2 per cent, respectively. However, Electricity, Gas, Steam, and Air Conditioning Supply Activities recorded a decline of 2.9 per cent in 2021.
Read: Twiga Foods invests $10 million to launch new subsidiary
