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Finnish union representative suggests vendor could cut up to 14% of its global workforce to meet cost synergy targets.
Nokia’s recently-announced plan to cut jobs in a bid to make hefty cost savings over the next couple of years could see it eliminate as many as 15,000 positions worldwide, it emerged this week.
A Finnish trade union representative told Reuters that, based on information from union contacts, job losses will likely number around 10,000-15,000.
Nokia has not shared any official numbers though, and declined to comment on the story, the newswire said.
Cuts on that scale would represent 10%-14% of Nokia’s global workforce.
Nokia announced last month that it would shed an unspecified number of employees in order to reach a €900 million cost synergies target related to the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, which it completed in January.
The redundancies will come before the end of 2018, in line with the operating cost synergy plan, Nokia said at the time.
Nokia agreed a deal worth €15.6 billion to take control of rival Alcatel-Lucent just over a year ago.
The two businesses are complementary to an extent – the deal provided Nokia with a strong fixed networks arm, for example, a business it sold out of several years ago – but there is naturally a significant amount of overlap in certain areas, hence the job losses.
