Michele Paris
Sama announced its move to terminate the employment of 1,108 workers after Facebook’s parent company, Meta, ended a content contract The data firm noted that after receiving the notice of termination, it made an attempt to contact Meta in an attempt to save jobs, but the discussions did not yield fruit Sama’s country lead and vice president for global delivery assured affected staff that the company will support them during the transition period TUKO.co.ke journalist Japhet Ruto has over eight years of experience in financial, business, and technology reporting, offering insights into Kenyan and global economic trends.
Over 1,100 workers in Nairobi are set to be laid off by Samasource Impact Sourcing Inc. (Sama), a Kenya-based business process outsourcing firm, following Meta’s decision to end a major content and data annotation contract.
Sama will fire 1,108 workers in Nairobi. Image for illustration. Photo: Kelvin Jay.
Source: Getty Images In a statement, the San Francisco-based data company said the employees at its Nairobi delivery centre, most of whom are tied to the now-terminated workstream, received formal redundancy notices on Thursday, April 16.
Why is Sama firing 1,108 employees? The layoffs are expected to begin later in April, in line with Kenyan labour laws.
Sama said it had attempted to engage Meta after receiving the termination notice in an effort to save jobs, but the discussions did not yield fruit.
“Sama engaged with the client in the interests of the Nairobi delivery team and the broader organisation. The efforts, however, have not been successful, and a formal notice of intended redundancy was issued on Thursday, April 16, 2026, to staff at the Sama Nairobi office,” Sama stated. In accordance with Section 40 of the Employment Act 2007, a notice of redundancy has been issued ahead of the client engagement conclusion later this month, together with the required notifications to the relevant parties
What is the impact of Sama’s job cuts? The job cuts highlight the volatility of an industry that has established Kenya as a crucial node in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) supply chain, but which is still largely dependent on a small number of major US technology clients like Meta.
They also deal a fresh blow to Kenya’s rapidly expanding but precarious AI outsourcing sector.
Annepeace Aliwa, Sama’s country lead and vice president for global delivery, assured affected staff that the company will support them during the transition period.
Sama revealed that Facebook’s parent firm, Meta, failed to renew a key contract. Photo: Mark Zuckerberg.
Source: Facebook “Client programmes change as is common in our sector, and we collaborate closely with our partners to handle these changes in an ethical manner. Supporting our staff during this transition and maintaining continuity throughout our larger operations are our top priorities right now,” she reiterated. The firm has a team of 5,000 data experts and described itself as a global leader in data annotation solutions for computer vision that power AI AI and Machine Learning (ML) models.
Why did Nairobi-based firm fire 30k workers? In related news, thousands of workers at Oracle Corporation are facing a dismal future after the American multinational technology corporation announced it would be laying off staff across its global offices.
Amid organisational reforms, 20,000 to 30,000 workers will be sacked globally.
Oracle’s HR department gave severance compensation to affected employees after sending them termination emails.
Source: TUKO.co.ke
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