170 Kenyans Left Jobless as US-Based Software Company Andela Lays off Workers

New York-headquartered software developer training and outsourcing company Andela has announced massive job cuts in Africa.

On Tuesday, the company said it will lay off 170 software developers in Kenya and at least 250 in Nigeria and Uganda.

Andela indicated that the retrenchment targets junior engineers and explained that the affected workers would not be able to “find meaningful work over the next year.”

The company makes money by identifying and training local entry-level software developers to be globally competitive before outsourcing their skills to customers in North America, mainly in the United States.

“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,” the company announced.

“As part of this shift, we have also had to make an extremely difficult decision as it relates to a number of talented junior engineers.”

The laying off comes despite the company almost doubling its annual revenue in the last financial year.

“It’s also become clear, however, that the majority of the demand is for more experienced talent. As a result of that, we began sourcing and assessing mid-level and senior engineers, and they now represent more than 25% of our talent base,” Andela noted.