This archive report was first published on 5 May 2020.
Published on May 5, 2020, DT Dobie's Managing Director, Ian Middleton, has attributed the company's impending job losses to the loss of its Nissan franchise six years ago, not the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company, which assembles brands like Volkswagen Polo Vivo in Kenya, has been experiencing a continuous loss of business, including the loss of the Nissan franchise to South African company Imperial Group in 2014.
DT Dobie's decision to send some employees packing was made at the end of 2019, and the company is now joining other Kenyan companies in different sectors that have parted ways with their employees in the past year.
‘This is to notify you that the management has been reviewing the performance of the company for the last 15 months and evidently there is a continuous loss of business for the company,’ said Middleton. ‘There are many reasons for this; the overall Kenyan economy over the past year, restriction on parts importation and internally loss of Nissan as a brand and the resultant reduction in servicing Nissan vehicles,’”
The company is offering counseling sessions to distraught employees and will hold consultative meetings to explore ways of reducing the number of employees to be affected and mitigate the harsh impact of redundancy.
DT Dobie's dwindling fortunes are set to impact on the growth of the manufacturing sector in the country, which contributes Sh700 billion to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year.
