Since 2022, there have been more than half a million people laid off from companies in the tech industry around the world, with 2023 seeing the most retrenchments with over 260 00 employees, according to Layoffs.fyi.

“Every industry was impacted in some way, but Big Tech, in particular, caught the global limelight after hiring en masse — responding to the public’s new reliance on technology when working from home — and subsequently laying off excess workers in huge swathes when the bubble burst,” explains the UK’s Business Financing in a report sent to Hypertext.

Africa, with its vibrant and burgeoning technology industry, was not safe from layoffs either, as the post-COVID-19 consumer crash digs into profits and sees companies looking to cut costs by any means. However, compared to firms in the US and Europe, layoffs from African tech companies haven’t been as vast.

According to a new study from Business Financing, the African tech company with the most layoffs since 2020 is ecommerce firm and the “Amazon of Africa” Jumia, cracking 900 employees axed. When compared to layoffs from companies like Microsoft, they may seem minuscule when the Redmond firm fired 18 000 people in its latest spree this month.

However, noting that Africa’s population of skilled tech workers is much shallower than those from the US, Asia and Europe, it is of concern.

Here are the 10 African tech companies with the biggest layoffs since 2020

Nigerian tech has suffered the most in terms of people losing jobs, with four different waves of layoffs from three companies – around 1 791 workers. Jumia has far and away the most layoffs, but it is the biggest company on the list.

Jumia has been struggling to maintain its growth amid expansion across the continent, posting yet another multi-million dollar loss in August 2023. The consumer spending shrinkage likely made this situation even worse for the company.

Meanwhile, other Nigerian tech firms could be feeling the pressure from the spending decrease and the worsening economic situation in Nigeria, as well as the CAPEX crisis affecting the West African nation.

The other throughline in the list is that ecommerce and fintech companies are the ones most commonly dropping large swathes of employees. Jumia, Copia and Alerzo are ecommerce firms operating on the continent, while Wave, Renmoney, and BitMEX are fintech companies, with BitMEX representing a crypto exchange platform.

mPharma and Twiga are the outliers, as mPharma is a healthtech firm and Twiga is a grocery logistics company.

It seems no South African companies managed to make the list, despite layoffs recorded from Telkom, who said in February 2023 that retrenchment would impact 15 percent of its workforce. The semi-private company has shrunk its employee base by 70 percent in the last 10 years, a MoneyWeb report says.