Nearly every employee of Twitter’s one and only office in Africa, Ghana, has been let go.
Elon Musk, the new boss, introduced a global employee purge that included layoffs. The corporation claimed it wanted to be more “immersed” in African dialogues when the Ghana headquarters was established last year to much fanfare. No redundancy was offered, unlike in some other nations, an unidentified employee told the BBC, but they stated their regular wage would be paid until the beginning of the next month, when their contract expires. Elon Musk tweeted on November 4 that employees had been “given 3 months of severance” after word of widespread staff layoffs began to circulate throughout the world. It was unclear to what office he was referring, though.
A Ghanaian worker said. According to local legislation, laid-off employees must receive redundancy pay and should be given three months’ notice as opposed to the Ghanaian employees, who were informed that their “final day of employment will be 4 December 2022,” who received less than a month’s notice.
“From the mail to the lack of next steps to the tone of the letter. Just everything. Ridiculously insulting,” the staff member continued.
In addition, employees were advised not to “contact or deal with any Customers, Clients, Authorities, Banks, Suppliers or other Employees of the Company and are expected to notify the Company if contacted” in the letter from Twitter management. Along with advising personnel to wait until their final day of employment with the company to start any other jobs or engagements, it also wished them luck in all of their future endeavours.
The new owner of Twitter, Mr Musk, has started firing people all across the world. He said that because the business was losing more than $4 million (£3.5 million) every day, he had “no choice” but to reduce the workforce.
In an April 2021 announcement, Twitter said it would create its first office in Africa in Ghana in order to “be more involved in the diverse and vibrant communities that fuel the conversations going place every day across the African continent.” At the time, Twitter applauded Ghana for its “free expression, online freedom, and the Open Internet,” and Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo hailed the news as “wonderful.”
