Tyre distributor Sameer Africa intends to lay off 52 of its employees as from February 1, 2020.
In a letter addressed to the Nairobi County labour office, the company’s acting managing director Peter Gitonga indicated that various tyre centers and offices across the country would be closed.
Gitonga added that the process will be done in batches from February until later in April.
This follows continuous struggles that the company has undergone since its change of strategy in 2016 where it stopped manufacturing local Yana tires and opted to outsource from Asia.
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“Arising from the foregoing, the board of directors has resolved to restructure the company further by aligning the company operations to become more of a trading and distributorship outfit, said Gitonga.
He added, “It is therefore contemplated that approximately 52 employees drawn from both management and unionisable cadres will have their employment contracts terminated.”
According to company’s profile, the staff head count has been declining since 2016, with the number of staff in 2018 shrinking to 168 from 288 in 22017.
Its net loss was also widened 15.8 times to Sh182.8 million within the first six months of 2019.
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In addition, it was established that the stock-outs and counterfeit products complicated the recovery efforts to bring the company back to its position.
The layoff notice was confirmed by the company’s chairman, Erastus Mwongera according to a local publication, who said that they are yet to determine how much will be spent on the retrenchment.
“We have been restructuring since we changed the business model from manufacturing to retail. This comes with adjustments,” said Mr Mwongera.
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