Nokia Corp. will shutter a Fort Worth, Texas-based facility next spring that provides handset logistical and repair services for the American market and will outsource the service to a third party, the company announced. The closure will affect 450 workers; 150 will transfer to Nokia’s Irving, Texas, facility and about 300 Nokia employees will lose their jobs.
The action effectively ends Nokia’s presence in Fort Worth, where in 2000 the Finnish handset giant had as many as 3,800 employees, according to the local Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The layoffs will begin in December and continue into the first quarter of next year. Nokia’s 500,000-square-foot facility in the city’s Alliance Airport industrial park will be closed, then sold.
“This represents a small market that is most efficiently managed by a third-party logistics provider that offers economies of scale … ,” Nokia said in a brief statement. “The outsourcing of repairs is in line with Nokia’s global strategy designed to run services efficiently.”
The handset vendor still has about 2,000 employees at its U.S. headquarters in Irving.
Nokia did not announce who would step in to provide the logistics and repair services.
