Andela announced the Laying off of 135 staff

The Coronavirus pandemic continues to threaten the job of many in the world as the Pan-African software engineering talent startup, Andela announced the laying off of 135 staff across four countries it operates in.
This was made known to 1,300 staff across seven countries — Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, and therefore the US via a video call led by CEO, Jeremy Johnson.
According to him, Andela’s customer base has collectively done fairly well in this era.
However, the choice had to be taken because the bulk of those customers are impacted by the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic, hence, the startup is projecting a decline in customers and a rise in churn going forward.
“While our customer base has delayed better than most, the bulk have still been impacted by the economic downturn. Expectations for slow growth necessitate cost-cutting measures to make sure that we make it to the opposite side,” he said.
From May 8, Andela says the layoffs, which affect roughly 10% of the company, will come across all locations except Kenya and Egypt and therefore the startup will provide severance packages and 4 months of health coverage for the affected employees.
In September last year, the corporate announced the shedding of 420 junior developers across Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya. At the time, the corporate said it had been restructuring its talent pool to more closely align with global market demand.
The company then shifted its business focus from being a talent accelerator to a full-on talent outsourcing firm because it began acquiring more senior developers.
“We will hire another 700 experienced engineers by the top of 2020 so as to stay up with demand from our partners,” Jeremy wrote during a blog post at the time.
It remains to be seen if the corporation will meet its target come December but barely five months into 2020, Andela has had to repeat the layoff process once more.
This is the third set of layoffs to occur within the space of nine months because the second round was reported in late February and was said to have been initiated via a ‘voluntary exit program’ for developers in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria.
However, the condition of this particular lay off is sort of different from the previous ones as companies everywhere the planet are either shedding, slashing salaries, or furloughing thanks to the recession caused by the pandemic.
And unlike the previous layoffs, Andela says engineers won’t be affected as other departments are trimmed.
The company also stated that these layoffs won’t affect staff in Ghana and Rwanda.
Going forward, Johnson says Andela’s directors will have their salaries slashed by 10% to 30% because the company hopes to save lots of about $5 million from the layoffs and within the end of the day, reduce its expenses of just about $25 million on software, travel, compensations among others.
This is very much expected in times like this, the Coronavirus is still projected to affect lots of people globally, I’m just curious as to how bad things may get while hoping for a better world.