Ecobank Plc has responded to the reports going viral on social media, that it sacked about 1200 members of its workforce, without considering the impact the decision could have on the Nigerian economy.
In a statement made available to the public, Ecobank said it did not disengage members of its staff contrary to the reports making the rounds.
The bank said that it only decided not to renew the contracts it had with its third-party recruitment agencies after the expiration, “and as such, returned this category of personnel back to the agencies who are their employers.”
[READ MORE: Ecobank Group hopes to cut down on Non-Performing Loans by next year]
Why this matters: While Ecobank responded swiftly to the reports, it is pertinent to note that the bank has a record of disengaging its staff.
The bank reportedly sacked about 1,040 of its workforce in 2016. It was learnt that the affected staff were those that achieved less than 40% of their performance targets.
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It is good to understand that one layoff doesn’t just affect an individual, as a country’s economy is also affected. Retrenching workers has a domino effect on the economy, causing an unbalanced sphere in the social system.
Nairametrics understands that when workers are let go, they drastically reduce their spending on luxuries like clothes, feeding, amongst other things that they need to survive.
A decrease in expenditure for one family may seem minute, but a mass downsizing as it is in Ecobank’s case, is entirely different, in that it results in loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. This is enough to impact a country’s economy, which then leads to a drop in national finances.
[READ FURTHER: Ecobank raises $200 million credit facilities]
Eco Bank has actually inform the general public of it’s inclement policy to human lives .
Pushing these number of people to unemployment market is evil .
So it is now in the wisdom of the bank to use and dump people like disposable .
It’s a height of wickedness QED
First I think I see several perspective to the issue at hand:
1. within the report it was mentioned that under performers were laid off. The question i have is that, Why not?
2. The bank ceased its contract with agents who get contract staff for banks for as high as N200k per staff but pay N20k to the contract staff. What are we saying?
3. How did the bank replaced those staff? Are they better or not? It might be pertinent to check the quality of staff and the quality of pay the new staff are getting if they were replaced?
we are all in a very difficult situation as a country, i believe as a business man I will always strive to keep my staff to the limits of resources and their performance. Proper investigations should be carried out to unearth the real issues in all of these.