14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia Siemens Networks, the famous joint venture between Finland's Nokia and Germany's Siemens, announced that it will cut out up to 9,000 jobs worldwide until 2010. This should not come as a surprise, because in June last year the company did talked about its intention to lay off about 15% of its 60,000 workforce. The measure is intended to help reach annual savings of about 1.5 billion euros, which corresponds to approximately 2.04 billion dollars.
Simon Beresford-Wylie, the network's CEO, asserted: "This is a necessary step to build a Nokia Siemens Networks able to compete now and in the future. It is our responsibility to create a winning company that can provide strong future opportunities for employees, adequate returns for our shareholders, and cost-competitive products, services and solutions for our customers."
The group plans to cut about 1,700 jobs in Finland (from 10,000), and up to 2,900 from the 13,000 that currently exist in Germany. And even though over 60 % of the company's employees work outside these countries, Simon Beresford-Wylie said that Finland and Germany will remain "major centers of employment for Nokia Siemens Networks."
A month ago, the joint venture changed its earlier forecast for this year, declaring that they expect a "very slight" market growth and that in the last months "there has been a narrowing of visibility and indications of a slowdown in spending in some regions." Obviously, Nokia Siemens is concerned about other market competitors, like Ericsson and Cisco, and wants to improve the company's profitability as much as possible.
Nokia is and has been for many years the largest mobile phone maker in the world, while Siemens is Europe's biggest electronics and electrical engineering corporation. The joint venture between the two giants was formed in order to create top equipment for mobile services like Vodafone, T-Mobile or O2.