Ride hailing app, Bolt has laid off 17 of its 70 employees in Nigeria.
According to reports, The layoffs were announced by the company’s regional manager for West and North Africa, Ireoluwa Obatoki during their “All Hands Meeting” of the Nigeria Operations teams held on Monday.
Obatoki confirmed the layoffs in a statement saying, “Bolt had to terminate work contracts with 17 employees in Nigeria due to an initiated strategy to improve our operational process in the country. This was certainly not an easy decision to make and we completely understand the frustration of the affected employees “
Meanwhile, affected employees claim that the company had assured them earlier that the restructuring would not lead to any job loss since it only involves creation of new teams and moving people around. The meeting which turned out to be their last as Bolt staff was expected to be an announcement of new teams and postings.
After the announcement of their layoffs on Monday, Bolt People Manager for West and North Africa Afolake Ismaila was said to have had one-on-one exit chats with the affected employees explaining reasons for the layoffs and the severance packages.
While Obatoki explained that the affected staff had different contracts with the company and would be paid what was due them according to their contracts, reports say that the severance packages were based on how long each person had worked at Bolt. Employees who had worked for two years got two months salary and those who had worked for a year or less, got one month salary.
The layoffs which mostly affected junior and mid – senior members of the operational team did not factor performance as a criteria for who got axed as some of their best hands were also affected.
In the place of the laid off employees, Bolt is now looking to fill three senior managerial positions including a country manager, a country sales manager, and an operations manager.
Only days ago, Bolt’s CEO, Markus Villig had announced plans to invest €500 million into its operations in Africa over the next two years and create opportunities for over 300,000 new drivers and couriers to join the platform.
