It’s almost the end of the year but it is also an unhappy time for many Nigerian workers who are most likely to lose their jobs as major multinational companies – GSK, P&G, Sanofi-Aventi, Unilever, Bolt food and others exit the country.
These companies have revealed that the economic situation is no longer favorable to their business and having considered all of these things, they better leave. The “business move”, according to these companies, had been fair until the fuel subsidy removal. They confessed that the situation went from what was ” manageable” to being out of their control. Hence, the reason for their withdrawal.
Statistics have indicated that, with the look of things, about 20,000 jobs will be gone which means that about 20,000 people will have to be rendered jobless starting from 2024. A major complaint peculiar to all of these foreign companies moving out of Nigeria is the economic conditions impacting them as companies dealing in dollars too.
Last week, when P&G announced that it was leaving Nigeria, it explained that the reason for the decision was due to the unfavorable economic condition in the country and further mentioned that it was also difficult to generate value in U.S. dollars.
According to an X user and finance personnel, Kalu Aja, “P&G makes top brands, but these brands have become too expensive for the average Nigerian consumer, it’s not that P&G can’t compete, they don’t see a payoff if they do. Nigeria is a small market. It’s cheaper for those companies to exit operations, then retain Sales teams, at lower overheads.”
Also, due to the recent price increases, Multichoice, citing the country’s poor economic situation, has led users to speculate the company may follow suit and depart from Nigeria too.
It looks like the only way out of the mess is for Bigerua to fix the economy. If the economic state of the country doesn’t get better, we don’t know how many foreign companies have to leave Nigeria soon and even how many more Nigerians will have to lose their jobs in the long run.
