Sama to lay off over 1,100 Kenyan workers after Meta contract ends

Samasource Impact Sourcing Inc (Sama), a Kenya-based business process outsourcing firm, will lay off over 1,100 employees in Nairobi after receiving notice from Meta that it will terminate a major content and data annotation contract. 

The San Francisco-headquartered data labelling firm said in a statement it had issued a formal redundancy notice on Thursday to 1,108 workers at its Nairobi delivery centre, most of whom are tied to the now-terminated workstream. The layoffs are expected to take effect later this month, in line with Kenya’s labour laws.

The job cuts deal a fresh blow to Kenya’s fast-growing but fragile AI outsourcing sector and underline the volatility of an industry that has positioned Kenya as a critical node in the global artificial intelligence supply chain, but which remains heavily dependent on a handful of large US technology clients like Meta.

Sama said it had attempted to engage Meta following the termination notice in a bid to preserve jobs, but the discussions did not yield a reprieve.

“As is standard in our industry, client programmes evolve, and we work closely with our partners to manage these transitions responsibly,” said Annepeace Alwala, Sama’s country lead and vice-president for global delivery. “Our immediate priority is supporting our employees through this change and ensuring continuity across our broader operations.”

The company said the redundancy process is being conducted in compliance with Section 40 of Kenya’s Employment Act, which governs layoffs, including notification requirements to employees and authorities.

While Sama did not disclose the value of the contract, Meta has been one of its most prominent clients, relying on outsourced workers in Nairobi to label and moderate data used to train artificial intelligence systems. The relationship has previously drawn scrutiny from labour activists over working conditions in content moderation and data annotation roles.

The layoffs will ripple beyond Sama’s workforce, hitting a segment of Kenya’s labour market that has been actively promoted as a source of digital jobs for young people. Nairobi has in recent years emerged as a hub for “impact sourcing”, a model that employs workers from underserved communities to deliver digital services for global firms.

Sama has been one of the most visible players in that ecosystem, marketing itself as an ethical outsourcing partner that provides living wages, medical cover, and mental health support to workers handling often sensitive or distressing content.

Alwala said the company would extend support to affected staff, including counselling and transition assistance. “We recognise the significant impact on the team and the local community,” she said.

The development raises questions about the sustainability of Africa’s role in the AI value chain, where companies such as Sama, OpenAI contractors, and other outsourcing firms provide the human labour underpinning machine learning systems built by global tech giants.

Sama said it would continue focusing on its core business of data annotation and model evaluation, and maintaining standards in data security and responsible AI, even as it navigates one of the largest workforce reductions in its Nairobi operations to date.

The Meta contract was one of Sama’s most high-profile engagements in Nairobi, anchoring a large share of its workforce in data annotation work tied to the development of artificial intelligence systems, including the company’s AI-enabled Ray-Ban smart glasses.

A recent investigation by Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, working with Kenyan journalists, shed light on the nature of that work. It found that footage captured by users of Meta’s AI glasses is routinely reviewed and labelled by contracted workers in Nairobi to help train the underlying models, raising questions about privacy, consent, and the global division of AI labour.