Kenya’s Radio Africa Group which owns a number of media brands including the Star Newspaper, Kiss TV and more than four radio stations has announced plans to retrench undisclosed number of its staff beginning this month as part of measures to cut down administrative costs.
“We have taken a comprehensive look at our operations and made the tough decisions necessary to focus the company on the significant and promising opportunities of the future. As a result, we are now undertaking operational efficiency measures to reduce overall operating costs in 2017. This will affect some positions and some roles that will be merged or become redundant.” read part of a memo sent to the staff from the company’s CEO Patrick Quarcoo.
This will be the second layoff given that in January last year, the company had fired about 50 employees as it converged its radio, print and television content creation divisions into one unit.
“We will be saying goodbye to colleagues who have worked to bring the company to where it is today. This is a tough call for the media industry in Kenya and worldwide, as every media industry player restructures to build an enduring business in a new digital age.” added Quarcoo.
Indeed, most of the traditional media houses are seeing revenues fall with most of them being forced to trim their workforce to properly align themselves with the new digital content business that meets the new demands of a changing advertising market.
Meanwhile, a significant number of Kenyan firms have in the past few months retrenched a number of employees raising questions on the health of the economy despite the government insisting that the economy is on the right path.
