At least 100o Kenyans are set to lose their jobs, following an announcement by Multi-national flower firm Finlays of an imminent closure of its two farms by December 25 declaring all positions redundant.

According to a statement by Finlays’ General Manager Stephen Scott, the farm has been experiencing severe economic challenges from the external market, extreme weather conditions and high labour costs leading to low returns.

Due to an oversupply in the European Market and decreasing demand, the price of roses has remained very low,” said Scott, “We have also experienced a weakening exchange rate, extreme weather conditions, and high labour costs,” Scott said.

Finlays becomes the latest company in the country to layoff employees on grounds of “tough economic times”.

Massive Layoffs

Early this month, betting firms SportPesa and Betin fired employees of their Kenyan operations citing hostile regulatory and taxation regimes.

Security firm Securex Kenya also early this month announced plans to lay off 222 employees following the loss of contracts throughout the year.

In an internal memo dated October 4 by the chief operating officer, the company said the situation has been worsened by the loss of the Two River Mall’s assignment which released 222 of the security officers.

“We refer to a number of lost assignments through the year, a situation that worsened as we approach the end of 2019. The losses can only be attributed to the prevailing difficult economic times prevalent that have recently culminated in the loss of Two Rivers assignment which released 222 of our security officers,” The memo stated.

In September, Sanlam announced that it has served its employees with a voluntary early retirement (VER) notice hinting at impending job cuts at the consolidating firm.