Nokia Siemens cuts 2,900 jobs in Germany to boost profits

PanARMENIAN.Net - Nokia Siemens Networks, the wireless-equipment venture of Nokia Oyj and Siemens AG, will cut 2,900 jobs in Germany and 1,200 in Finland as it struggles to compete with more profitable manufacturers, Bloomberg reported.

Nokia Siemens will concentrate German operations at five locations and close other sites including the country headquarters in Munich, the venture said in a statement today. The company employs 9,100 people at more than 75 locations in Germany, according to its website. Jobs will be cut at all but two sites in Finland, where it employs 6,900 people.

The company, whose main competitors are Ericsson AB and Huawei Technologies Co., said in November that it will eliminate 17,000 jobs worldwide, equivalent to about 23 percent of its workforce, by the end of 2013. The cutbacks are part of a strategy of reducing annual costs by 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). Nokia Siemens also announced a target figure of 1,200 for Finnish job cuts ahead of union talks.

Chief Executive Officer Rajeev Suri said in November that Nokia Siemens would scale back product lines to concentrate on mobile broadband networks and services to become profitable. The venture has posted losses in all but two quarters since it was set up in April 2007. The company sold three divisions last quarter as part of the reorganization.

Nokia rose as much as 2.9 percent to 3.87 euros and traded up 2.1 percent at 4:07 p.m. in Helsinki. Siemens gained 0.7 percent to 72.75 euros in Frankfurt.

Operations remaining open in Germany will include optical networks development in Berlin, customer service in Bonn and Dusseldorf, production and development in Bruchsal and long term evolution technology, or LTE, development in Ulm, Nokia Siemens said.