Telecom equipment maker Nokia
Siemens Network (NSN) said on Tuesday that in line with its restructuring plans
announced previously, it will cut 2,900 jobs in Germany and 1,200 jobs in
Finland. On 23 November 2011, the firm had announced its plans of cutting 17,000
jobs worldwide to cut down on costs. The company said that it has begun
discussions with local representatives for reducing the number of employees in
eight European countries.
A company spokesperson told AFP,
"The discussions concern 1,200 out of 6,900 employees in Finland and 2,900 out
of 9,100 in Germany." He confirmed that employee representatives had been
informed of the proposed cuts on Tuesday. The spokesman also said that NSN
worker representatives were due to receive official information of the staff
restructuring in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Britain.
NSN, which had 74,000 employees, had announced its plans in November to reduce
its global workforce by approximately 17,000 by the end of 2013. It had even
said that the restructuring plan was aimed at cutting annual costs by one
billion euros ($1.3 billion) compared to 2011 outlays.
Rajeev Suri, chief executive, NSN, had said in a company statement in November
when the job cuts were announced, "These planned reductions are regrettable but
necessary, and it is our goal to make them in a fair and responsible way,
providing the support we can to employees and communities." NSN said in a
statement in Finland that official negotiations were scheduled to begin on 8
February. It also mentioned that employee retraining, job re-assignment and
entrepreneurship support programmes would be introduced to help cushion the blow
of the planned retrenchments, state Agencies. According to analysts, all
European vendors would have to look at cutting costs and consolidation in order
to stay in the business. Ben Wood, head of research, CCS Insight, said, "The
cost of a Swedish, German or Finish engineer is an order of magnitude higher
than a Chinese one, this makes the threat from a rampant competitor like Huawei
a very daunting prospect."