It seems as the year comes to the end, to be raining downsizing in tech companies in Uganda. With Kilimall being the latest in the game. Yesterday, we reported that Jumia Classifieds Uganda terminated the contracts of all its staff. But, it seems the venture isn't alone. (See also: Jumia Classifieds terminates all staff in Uganda, Shifting Operation to Kenya)
After reading our post on the Jumia Classifieds downsizing, one of our readers wrote to us. He was informing us that there's also "massive downsizing taking place at Kilimall."
In a conversation with Wang Chengyang - the Managing Director for Uganda and Nigeria - he confirmed the rumors.
"We don’t renew the contracts with some old staffs cause they don’t match our requirments [sic] as our business increasing. Maybe they are familar [sic] with some areas, but they are not eager for success, we need the staffs who are self-driven, keeping on learning and improving," Wang wrote in an email.
Our reader who tipped us off said: "they only have one department left, purchases". But, Wang pointed out that they have only downsized the team by two employees.
"Only two we downsized at Kilimall Uganda, the graphic designer & digital marketing specialist, cause we have a central team in to incharge [sic] of those work for Kilimall Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria," Wang added.
Kilimall currently has around 10 employees in Uganda. These are doing order fulfillment, customer service, and local vendor management. Though in total, the venture has over 100 employees in Kenya and around 30 in Nigeria. Kilimall was launched in Uganda at the end of May 2016.
One thing, interesting about the downsizing is how Uganda is losing out on employment opportunities. This is due to the improvement in technology that has made outsourcing less costly.
In both scenarios, Jumia Classifieds and Kilimall, the jobs are being taken to Kenya. As companies, their main goal is to cut costs as much as possible. So, if it means moving the jobs away from Uganda, they'll do that.