500 “redundant” employees to lose jobs as Telkom plans restructuring

Five hundred people are set to be rendered jobless in the next few days as Kenya’s third largest mobile phone services operator by market share Telkom on October 26 issued a thirty-day notice to relevant authorities and company stakeholders informing them of what the company describes as an intended workforce-restructuring exercise.

In the statutory notification to the Ministry of Labour, Telkom Kenya has indicated that it is considering declaring the employees redundant to enable the company to invest more into the growth and sustainability of its business.

“The company must align its cost structure and skill-set with its strategy. This requires Telkom to restructure its business, and as a result, this will impact the current and long-term needs of its workforce. This restructuring will enable Telkom to not only invest in its business but more importantly in its people,” reads a statement to newsrooms from Telkom.

In the statement, Telkom Kenya says that it is adapting to market dynamics and changing consumer demands, to ensure that it delivers relevant and competitive products and services.

“This will also ensure that Telkom becomes a stronger player in the market and grows its relationship with its business partners,” reads the statement.

Going forward the company says that it is eyeing toppling Kenya’s biggest telcos Safaricom and Airtel but it has its eyes trained on upstaging the latter first.

“Since 2016, Telkom has successfully rebranded, invested Ksh14 billion into its business to expand its network coverage, launched 4G services and its mobile money services platform, T-kash. Telkom has initiated a revamped strategy to become the credible number two, the challenger in the market,” adds the mobile operator.

The company has approximately 1400 employees meaning that with the retrenchment, the company will have sacked 35% of its staff.

In April 2018, speculation was rife that Telkom was in talks with Airtel to enter into a merger in order to put an end a loss making streak which would explain why the telco badly needs the restructuring.

The merger would ensure that the two companies have the necessary infrastructure to take on Safaricom which has a market share of 65.4% at the moment.

Airtel has a market share of 21.4% while Telkom boasts of 8.8% of the market share.