MTN Nigeria, MTN Group’s local unit in Nigeria has laid off about 280 from its workforce.
According to sources within the company, the job cut was don across the various department in the company. Those affected were mostly long-serving staff with about 5 years of service to the company.
According to inside sources, affected staff accounted for about 15% of the total headcount. The source claimed that 200 of them were permanent while 80 others were contract staff.
PremiumTimes quoted an inside source who said:
“Given that the company is about 16 years old in Nigeria, the severance package brought pain and discontent among the affected staff”.
“With the payoff structure, senior managers with 15 years of service were left with about N15 million. Most of the staff got less than N5 million.”
The source added that “What it means is that if one worked in MTN for five years, one would be paid three weeks of their gross salaries times five”.
The major problem facing the largest mobile carrier in Nigeria was the NGN33 billion record fine it paid Nigeria’s telecom regulator, NCC.
In its full year 2016 result, MTN Group said it made full year loss, the first it is 20 years of operation.
The category is also making less and less revenue with the surge in data usage and a downturn in voice calls and short messaging service, SMS. Last week, Glo, the second largest carrier increased its data rates for new subscriptions. All other carriers have also revised their data rates to remain competitive.
Neither MTN Nigeria nor MTN Group, the parent company has not issued a statement on the matter. The group is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The market is awaiting its first quarter result which will be released in the following few days.
