New Telegraph

Telcos grow Nigerian workforce by 97.4% to 7,381

The number of workers employed by mobile network operators in the country rose to 7,756 at the end of 2020, Sunday Telegraph has learnt. According to data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), this figure represents the entire staff strength of MTN, Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile, Smile Communications, and Ntel.

 

Compared with the reported number of staff in 2019, which stood at 7,750, the telecom operators added only six new employees last year, representing a 0.07 per cent increase in staff strength. Industry analysts said the low recruitment in the telecom sector last year may not be unconnected with COVID-19.

 

 

 

NCC’s data confirmed that the operators had increased their staff strength by 183 in 2019. A breakdown of the employed staff figure showed that 7,381, representing 97.4 per cent of the total employed staff by the six telecom companies were Nigerians, while 195, representing 2.6 per cent of the total figure were expatriates. A further breakdown in this category revealed that 4,843 of the Nigerian Staff are Male while the remaining 2,538 are female. Similarly, 191 of the expatriate staff are male while only four of them are female.

 

Meanwhile, the Federal Government of Nigeria has frowned at the domination of the management cadre of the telecom companies by expatriates. Although the number of employed Nigerian staff are far higher than expatriates, the former are mostly junior workers in the various companies.

 

The government, which earlier in the year introduced a new ‘National Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content in the Nigerian Telecommunications Sector’, noted in the policy document that a survey of industry players conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in 2018, showed, among other things, that there is a higher percentage of foreigners among top management staff of telecom companies when compared with other staff, with Nigerians making up 31 per cent in relation to foreigners who make up 69 per cent.

 

“A number of reasons are adduced for this disparity but the most common one is the often stated lack of sufficient technical skills capacity by the indigenous employees to take up more technical roles,” it said.

 

To address the imbalance, the government said one of the policy’s objectives is to build the skills capacity of Nigerians and the indigenous telecom companies in order to access opportunities within the sector; and to define minimum indigenous content levels for projects across the telecommunications value chain, and to support the development of the local telecom start-up and entrepreneurial ecosystem by making the licensing framework less cumbersome for new entrants and telecom start-up.

 

In addition, the policy states that, “telecom companies with foreign participation should have clear succession plans for senior management positions with conscious actions at building the capacity and providing the opportunity for indigenes to attain senior management positions within the larger operators.

“A minimum expatriate quota requirement, which states that each expatriate employed by a company should be understudied by two Nigerians and that expatriate quota approvals by Ministry of Interior have validity dates, should be adhered to.

 

Further, the expatriate quota in the telecommunications sector should be referred to the regulator before approval leaving the room as this will aid in compliance monitoring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To support this approach, modalities should be put in place to ensure that foreign companies are not allowed to trade directly in certain segments of the telecommunications markets unless there is a certain percentage of indigenous content or ownership,” the Federal Government stated in the policy.

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