Nokia followed up its 150th anniversary with news that it will cut more jobs, according to Reuters, which reported that Nokia Technologies is expected to trim its workforce by 10%, laying off 70 of its roughly 650 employees.
All the jobs slated for elimination are reportedly based in Finland, which has already been hit hard by Nokia’s restructuring. Nokia currently employs about 7,000 people in Finland. The company was asked about job cuts after it announced its plans to buy Alcatel-Lucent, and said at the time that it was too soon to forecast what will happen in Finland.
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Nokia Technologies is one of three Nokia business units that remained after Nokia sold its device business to Microsoft last year. Nokia Networks is by far the largest part of the company. The Here maps unit is a separate business that Nokia is preparing to sell. Nokia Technologies licenses Nokia’s extensive patent portfolio and incubates new technologies. In addition, Nokia Technologies is charged with launching Nokia’s reentry into the mobile device space, starting with the Nokia N1 Android tablet.
Nokia underwent a painful restructuring during 2011, 2012 and 2013. The company eliminated more than 25,000 jobs as its device unit bled red ink. Nokia was once the world’s leading maker of mobile phones, but it was slow to make the transition to smartphones.
The merger with Alcatel-Lucent could mean more job cuts at one or both companies, but Nokia has pointed out that the two equipment-makers have “highly complementary portfolios and geographies.” Some have speculated that any job cuts that do materialize could impact the United States, because the two European companies have pledged to protect French jobs in order to win approval from regulators for their merger.
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