Nokia aims to shed 1000 staff, voluntarily

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 26 February 2009 05:02

IT Industry - Market

Nokia has embarked on further cost cutting, announcing plans to offer voluntary redundancies to 1000 staff globally on a first-come-first served basis; to encourage staff to take sabbaticals and unpaid leave; and to take their leave rather than take pay in lieu of leave.

Earlier this month Nokia announced that it would close one of its handset R&D facilities in Finland with the loss of 350 jobs and scale back operations at others (ExD 12 Feb).

The global voluntary resignation package will be made available for employees worldwide, with the exception of direct labour and senior executives and will be open for application from March 1 until May 31 2009 or until 1000 applications have been received, whichever comes first. During 2009,

Nokia says it will also grant short-term unpaid leaves and sabbaticals of, for example, one month, more freely "where operations allow and business continuity is not jeopardised." Terms and implementation of all these schemes are subject to each country's practice and legislation.