Harsh news
January 31, 2012
Electronic equipment company Nokia Siemens Network announced on Tuesday that it planned to axe 2,900 jobs in Germany in the course of this year. This means that one third of all German-based NSN employees would go by the end of 2012.
Thirty of the company's 35 locations in Germany will be shut down, among them the firm's administrative headquarters in Munich.
In addition, some 1,600 jobs will be relocated to the company's five remaining production and research sites in Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Bruchsal and Ulm.
When global cuts were first announced last November, NSN chief executive Rajeev Suri said in a company statement, "These planned reductions are regrettable, but necessary, and it's our goal to make them in a fair and responsible way, providing the support we can to employees and communities."
Drastic measures
All in all, NSN says it needs to cut 17,000 jobs in eight European countries by 2014, down from a total workforce of 74,000 at present. The company, which is based in Espoo near the Finnish capital, Helsinki, said the cuts were needed to boost competitiveness on the global market.
Germany's engineering workers' union, IG Metall, said it would put up fierce resistance to the planned job losses. "We will fight against this job cull, together with all our employees," IG Metall spokesman Michael Leppek said in a statement.
Criticism also came from the Economics Minister in the southern German state of Bavaria, Martin Zeil. He said his government did not understand the need for such large-scale cuts and spoke of a "hapless strategy" and "clear management blunders."
Author: Hardy Graupner (dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Michael Lawton