Up to 15,000 Nokia employees could lose their jobs by 2018
A year after announcing plans to acquire Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Networks is looking to save $1 billion in costs in part by cutting up to 14% of its approximately 104,000-strong global workforce, according to reports.
Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent officially combined operations in January, in a deal valued at $16.5 billion. According to Nokia, the process will start this week with meetings including the company’s two European Works Councils and “similar meetings and consultations with employee representatives are taking place in almost 30 countries in the coming weeks.”
“These actions are designed to ensure that Nokia remains a strong industry leader,” explained Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri, in a statement. “When we announced the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent we made a commitment to deliver EUR 900 million in synergies – and that commitment has not changed. We also know that our actions will have real human consequences and, given this, we will proceed in a way that that is consistent with our company values and provide transition and other support to the impacted employees.”
Citing people familiar with the situation, Bloomberg reports the company will cut between 10,000 and 15,000 positions with 1,300 jobs being cut in its home market of Finland.
“Nokia is taking steps to adapt to challenging market conditions and to shift resources to future-oriented technologies such as ‘5G,’ the cloud and the ‘Internet of Things,'” the company noted. “As part of the program, the company also continues to target worldwide savings in real estate, services, procurement, supply chain and manufacturing.”
Specifically, company officials said headcount reductions would target “areas where there are overlaps,” including research and development, regional and sales organization, and corporate functions.
