Ericsson sacks 160 Nigerian workers, takes jobs to India - Punchng

Ericsson Nigeria has disengaged about 160 permanent and outsourced workers in its Network Operating Centre. It was gathered that disengagement, which takes effect on Sunday, December 4, 2016, affected 55 full-time employees of the company.

According to sources in the company, some workers were laid off in July when the offshoring (the practice of a company in one country arranging for people in another country to do work for it) of jobs to India began.
Findings show that foreign workers had been recruited to replace the disengaged workers, and knowledge transfer by Nigerian engineers to the new workers was ongoing in the company’s office in India.
In the last two and half years, Ericsson Nigeria had managed the MTN network majorly from its pool of local workers, some of who were former MTN employees, as well as other contracted workers.
One of the affected workers said that the company was offering the jobs, which involved the monitoring of MTN masts and networks in the country, to Indians at reduced costs.
The workers expressed fears that this would be a continuous trend in the telecommunications industry if it was not addressed by the government.
The employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “The company said it was cheaper for the work to be done in India than in Nigeria. The monitoring of those masts can be done from anywhere.
We monitor Abuja, Enugu, Asaba, and Port Harcourt sites from the Lagos office. What they are now proposing is that instead of monitoring from Lagos, they want to monitor from India.
The Public Relations Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa, Ericsson, Toju Egbebi, however, said the move was part of the company’s global cost and efficiency programme. According to her, it is being carried out across 180 countries where the company operates.