Nokia might cut down 15,000 jobs globally

In a recent development, Nokia is likely to cut 10,000 to 15,000 jobs globally as part of a cost-cutting programme following its acquisition of Franco-American rival Alcatel-Lucent, a Finnish union representative said.

However Nokia is still not sure on a final number of jobs that will be reduced in total. Nokia went ahead with the cost-cutting programme in April with a target to slash EUR 900 million ($1 billion) of operating costs by 2018.

Risto Lehtilahti, a trade union shop steward at Nokia's Oulu site said, "We haven't heard any official numbers, but based on the information from our union contacts, I would estimate the global impact of this round would likely be around 10,000 to 15,000 jobs."

While, another Nokia spokeswoman declined to comment on the 10,000-15,000 figure.

If we talk numbers then, currently Nokia employs around 104,000 people worldwide. In one of the announcements made last week the company specified its plan for its home country, saying it was cutting around 1,000 Finnish jobs, compared to an initial target of 1,300 jobs.

As per some talks, Nokia is looking to reduce 1,400 positions in Germany and 400 jobs in France. But, in France it will also create 500 research and development posts - in line with a pledge to the French government during the Alcatel negotiations.

The Communication Workers of America (CWA) says that the company already started to reduce US jobs a year ago in preparation for their EUR 15.6 billion merger.

Nokia has slashed thousands of jobs over the past decade in Finland. It all began because Nokia sold its phone business to Microsoft and had to cut jobs in the country.

While we are already hearing talks of Nokia returning to the tablet ad phone industry. It will be interesting to see how and what brings it back.