Nokia is planning to cut about 1,300 jobs in its native Finland following its acquisition of France’s Alcatel-Lucent.
The tech firm said Wednesday it had started talks with labor unions as it looks to shed 1,300 jobs from its Finnish bases in Espoo, Oulu and Tampere—the latest in a long line of cuts at the former global mobile phone giant, which has been trying to refashion itself into a leading maker of wireless and Internet equipment.
Nokia currently has 6,850 employees in Finland who make up part of its 104,000-strong global workforce.
“This was a match between France and Finland, Finland lost,” said Pertti Porokari, president of the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland. “The French government had the goal to protect French jobs and they did so.
If you look at the final result of this match, the Finnish government was just standing calmly on the sidelines.”
In France, Nokia will only cut 400 positions by 2018 and will recruit 500 workers in research and development, in line with promises made to the French government to maintain 4,200 employees in the country for two years after the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition.
“At first sight, the announcement corresponds to Nokia commitments,” French white-collar union CFE CGC said in a statement.
In Germany, Nokia plans to lose 1,400 of its 4,800 staff in the country.
The company didn’t disclose the total number of jobs that would go world-wide.
“Reductions will come largely in areas where there are overlaps, [between the newly-merged companies] such as research and development, regional and sales organizations as well as corporate functions,” it said in a statement.
Nokia shareholders approved the €15.6 billion ($17.76 billion) acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in December. The two companies started working as an operationally combined group on Jan. 14.
