Nokia job cuts might begin from April end

The world's leading mobile phone maker Nokia said Wednesday negotiations with unions over upcoming job cuts would begin at the end of April.

'We don't have an exact starting date, but we are planning to begin talks at the end of April, and then we will of course talk about the numbers,' company spokesman Tomi Kuuppelomaeki told AFP.

Nokia has not yet said how many of its 16,000 developers worldwide it will let go as part of a new corporate strategy to phase out development of its smartphone platform Symbian.

On February 11, chief executive Stephen Elop announced the company would begin adopting Microsoft's Smartphone platform instead, resulting in 'substantial' job losses.

The move was a dramatic strategy shift aimed at streamlining a company that has so far been steadily losing ground on the Smartphone market to Apple's iPhone, RIM's Blackberry, and phones running Google's Android platform.

The announcement sent shock waves through Finland, where most of the company's Symbian development is done, and where around 20,000 people work for Nokia.

Some industry analysts have speculated that up to 6,000 jobs could be at risk, with hundreds or thousands more lost among subcontractors.

-JMD Computer

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