By Arild Moen
Bloomberg- Nokia’s Stephen Elop (L) chatting to Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer
A question asked by a Nokia shop steward to a Nokia Corp. executive on a TV talk-show in Finland on Thursday quite neatly summed up current morale and uncertainty among the company’s engineers: would it be wise for us developers to start specializing on the Windows Phone operating system? The answer: too early to tell.
Nokia, the world’s largest maker of mobile handsets, which last week announced a tie-up with Microsoft Corp. as part of a major shift in strategy, will see numerous job cuts. The company said it will use Microsoft’s Windows Phone as its main smartphone platform, cutting research and development in its own platform, Symbian, which has struggled to compete with more consumer-driven rivals like Apple Inc.’s iPhone and smartphones based on Google Inc.’s Android platform.
Nokia’s Chief Executive Stephen Elop said on Friday that the company is in discussions with several international companies, including some competitors, to provide new job opportunities for employees affected by its recent strategy overhaul.
Juha Raudaskoski, a Nokia shop steward in Oulu, northern Finland, said it was good that Nokia was seeking alternative opportunities for its employees: “We still do not know anything about possible job reductions,” Mr. Raudaskoski said, adding, “Nokia personnel have mixed feelings right now, but that is only natural.”
Nokia says it does not yet know how many employees will have to go. Nonetheless, undisclosed talks with Nokia’s management made Finland’s Minister of Economic Affairs warn that the shift in strategy threatens a large number of jobs in Finland: “…[it] is by far the biggest structural change that has ever taken place in Finland’s technology industry,” said Mauri Pekkarinen.
Nokia, which employs 19,840 workers in Finland, including about 6,500 in research and development, has said it could take several months to figure out how many jobs to cut.
“It now looks like these lay-offs will include a huge number of employees and people are very scared and angry,” said Antti Rinne, chairman of Finnish trade union Pro, representing about 5,000 Nokia employees. Earlier this week he demanded Nokia pay a lump sum of €100,000 in addition to severance payments for each and every staff it would lay off—corresponding, on average, to two years of gross salary.
lay-offs lay-offs lay-offs who said any thing about lay-offs WELCOME.TOO THE BEST TECH HAS TO OFFER. Well it half time bro/sister. you just joinedawinning team layoffs are you still playing pong /breakout or mabe watching your vhs lol I don’t think WILLIAM GATES III HAS THAT IN MIND .The tablet will sing dance walk and talk theBEST is always saved for last .MR/MRS GATES ARE WHAT WE CALL DO GOODS HERE IN THE STATES.YOUR STEW SHOULD BE BUCKED BACK TO WHAT WE CALL A COWBOY . LOK FOWARD TO SEEING YOU IN THE STATES OPENING THE BELL.JUST ONE MORE PICE TO THE PUZZLE IS MISSING STAY TUNED
The severance package is already likely to include a generous 6 months or more of salary, as with previous layoffs, the purpose of which is to give employees time to reeducate themselves and seek employment. The union is implying that the next group are particularly slow learners with few transferable skills. The employees should be offended, but the “heck yeah, gimme the money” sentiment is a more natural reaction.
Why weren’t the unions and the represented worker’s more concerned and vocal about the enterprise’s (ala GM) inability to develope a competing product strategy prior to the outsourcing decision? Two years pay? I forgot Finland is the socialist example so many Us citizens love to point to for healthcare and models of the benefots the US could accrued if we would just wake up.
Union demands that they pay every laid off employee the equivalent of 2 years gross salary. that is hilarious. Unions are f#@$ing dellusional