Having last week unveiled a plan to cut €1 billion from its operating expenses this year, Finnish mobile device maker Nokia today said it intends to slash its workforce by 7,000.
The company will outsource 3,000 software development jobs to Accenture, while another 4,000 roles will be cut altogether. The lost jobs will be "mostly in Denmark, Finland and the UK," the company said in a statement.
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Nokia currently employs around 130,000 people.
"At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones and future disruptions," said Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. "However, with this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce. This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia."
Accenture will take over development of the Symbian operating system, which Nokia acquired in 2008. Once the most popular mobile operating system in the world, Symbian came to be seen as disadvantage to Nokia in the smartphone market as it was not designed for touchscreen devices.
Last year, Nokia signed a deal with software giant Microsoft to use its Windows Phone 7 operating system on all new smartphone devices. It said it keep using Symbian on lower end products.
Nokia said that discussions with staff around the 4,000 further job cuts began today, and that it has launched a "comprehensive" corporate social resonsibility program for affected employees.
