Nokia cuts 4,000 jobs worldwide, reorganizes R&D sites

Nokia announced today that it will cut its workforce by 4,000 employees by the end of year 2012. The majority of the reductions will be made in Nokia’s home country Finland, Denmark and in the UK. Nokia will also refocus its research and development operations.

The cuts are a part of Nokia’s restructuring as the company decided to switch from Symbian to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone operating system, a deal led by new CEO Stephen Elop (pictured left).

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Nokia also announced a collaboration with Accenture. With the collaboration all Nokia’s Symbian software activities and about 3,000 jobs will transfer to Accenture by the end of year 2012. Nokia’s Finnish employees have estimated that about half of the 3 000 jobs going to Accenture will be from Finland, reported Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper in Finland. (Beware, the story behind the link is in Finnish)

Transitioning employees, located in China, Finland, India, United Kingdom and the United States, will initially work on Symbian software activities for Nokia. Over time, Accenture and Nokia will seek opportunities to retrain and redeploy transitioned employees.

All employees affected by the reduction plans can stay on the Nokia payroll through the end of 2011. Nokia expects personnel reductions to occur in phases until the end of 2012.

Each of Nokia’s research and development site will have a clear role and a mission. The company will close some of its R&D sites but it did not name them yet.

Nokia will focus its Windows Phone development to San Diego, Beijing and two sites in Finland: Salo and Tampere, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop said in a press conference in Finland.

The first Windows Phone smartphones from Nokia are expected to come out in year 2012.