Nokia To Cut 1,000 Staff In Finland

Nokia has completed talks with staff at its plant in Salo, Finland, ensuring 1,000 jobs will be cut as the company looks to battle back from a turbulent 2011.

Workers will be made redundant gradually throughout the year, but most will be gone by the end of June. According to Reuters, the remaining staff will focus on making models more suitable for European operators.

Nokia has been making major changes since CEO Stephen Elop took over, warning the company was standing atop a “burning platform”. Not only has Elop shifted the company’s attention away from Symbian and over to Windows Phone 7, but he has initiated widespread job cuts.

Asian shift

Most of the company’s manufacturing is now moving over to Asia, taking away business from Europe and reducing the headcount on the continent. In February the company revealed it was to axe 4,000 jobs across factories in Hungary, Finland and Mexico.

In April last year, the company said it was cutting another 4,000 jobs, whilst moving 3,000 Symbian developers to IT services giant Accenture.

A month later, the company saw such a substantial sales drop it decided to cancel its 2011 outlook, leading to much uncertainty about the company’s future viability.

Yet some believe Nokia has turned a corner, as Windows Phone 7 gains plaudits and, more importantly, customers. Results from a recent Appcelerator and IDC study has shown developers are keener to produce kit for WP7 too. The report claimed there was “a huge jump in interest in Q4 2011” in Microsoft’s OS.

Rival RIM, meanwhile, is having a torrid time. That same report showed interest in BlackBerry OS slumped to 15.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012, down from 20.7 percent.

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