Nahimah Ajikanle Nurudeen
MTN Nigeria has sacked about 280 of its employees, in a major job cut that affected about 15% of the company’s entire Nigerian workforce, online newspaper Premium Times reported Monday, quoting unnamed sources.
It could be recalled that MTN Nigeria recorded nearly $1 billion in profit in 2016, but it was fined N1.4 trillion and later reduced to N330bn by the Nigerian government for failing to disconnect 5.2 million unregistered subscribers.
The firm had since then faced with dwindling revenue couple with economic recession which has impacted business activities in negative ways.
A staff of the company who is not affected by the job cut said of the sacked workers were given their sack letters last Friday.
He said those affected by the move include some 200 permanent employees and about 80 contract staff across various cadres, ranging from new graduates to senior managers.
Many of those sacked spent up to 15 years with the company having joined MTN as it opened its business in Nigeria in 2001.
According to him, affected workers were given a dismal severance of 75% of their gross monthly income multiplied by the number of years with the company, the newspaper said.
Some of the sacked MTN staff said they would challenge their disengagement at the National Industrial Court.
