To start the process, Nokia representatives are meeting 06 April with the company's two European Works Councils. Similar meetings and consultations with employee representatives will take place in almost 30 countries in the coming weeks. Processes and timelines will vary from one country to another. Affected employees will receive support and placement services. Further updates on the workforce reduction will be given at Nokia's quarterly earnings reports.
Unions in Finland said the restructuring may impact one in five Nokia employees in the country. An estimated 1,300 of the 7,000 jobs in Finland will go, with about half the reductions in Espoo, a quarter in Oulu and a quarter in Tampere. Employees will benefit from similar terms as during the restructuring in 2011-13. The engineers union said it was shocked by the massive reduction and disappointed that the Finnish government had not protected workers in the same way that the French government did during the negotiations for Nokia to acquire Alcatel-Lucent.
French unions reported from a works council meeting that employee numbers in France would largely be maintained. While some R&D staff would be re-assigned and around 400 sales positions will be made redundant, the company has pledged to create 337 new positions in 2016-17. The CFE-CGC union said this largely respects the agreements made prior to the merger, with around 4,200 employees maintained in France and a greater share devoted to R&D.
