Nokia's Workforce Reduction: 2,000 Jobs Gone in China, 350 in Europe

Nokia-No-Job?: Nokia has announced huge job cuts, eliminating nearly 2,000 posts in Greater China and planning to lay off an additional 350 employees in Europe. This decision is part of the company's strategy to reduce costs, as confirmed by sources familiar with the situation.

A spokesperson for Nokia acknowledged that discussions regarding the layoffs in Europe are ongoing but did not provide details about the layoffs in Greater China. By the end of December 2023, Nokia employed approximately 10,400 people in Greater China and 37,400 in Europe. The company is aiming to streamline its workforce to between 72,000 and 77,000 employees by 2026.

Last year, Nokia outlined plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs, which it hopes will save between 800 million euros (about $868 million) and 1.2 billion euros by 2026. The company recently reported a 9% increase in operating profit for the third quarter, primarily attributed to its cost-cutting initiatives. However, net sales fell short of expectations, causing shares to drop by 4%.

So far, Nokia has successfully achieved 500 million euros in gross savings, according to the spokesperson.

CEO Pekka Lundmark emphasized that while cost reductions are necessary, they will not come at the expense of research and development. "We are not doing cost cutting in such a way that we would sacrifice our R&D output," he said during a call with reporters. "I am happy with the pace of cost reduction. We are actually a bit ahead of the schedule that we had."

When the initial job cuts were announced, Nokia had around 86,000 employees and is now slightly above 78,500, as reported by the spokesperson.

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