Finnish telecoms giant Nokia is to axe between 9,000 and 14,000 jobs by the end of 2026 to cut costs.
The announcement was made as the company reported a 20% drop in sales between July and September.
The company blamed slowing demand for 5G equipment in markets such as North America.
It currently has 86,000 employees around the world, and has axed thousands of jobs since 2015.
Nokia wants to cut costs by between €800m and €1.2bn (£695m-£1bn) by 2026, it said.
Its customers have been cutting spending amid high inflation and interest rates, it said.
Advances in cloud computing and AI will need “significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities”, said chief executive Pekka Lundmark.
“However, given the uncertain timing of the market recovery, we are now taking decisive action,” he said.
It said it wanted to “act quickly” by cutting costs by €400m in 2024, and €300m in 2025.
Mr Lundmark added that despite “ongoing uncertainty”, Nokia expected to “an improvement in our network businesses” in the current quarter.
The company declined to say where the job cuts would fall, or whether UK employees would be affected.
It said the cuts had been a “difficult business decision” but were “a necessary step to adjust to market uncertainty and protect our long-term profitability and competitiveness”.
“We have immensely talented people at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by the process,” a spokesperson said. “We are now beginning the process of consultation on initial reductions.”
The timing and detail of final jobs cuts “will be decided only after careful consideration, and will depend on the evolution of end market demand,” the spokesperson added.
Stalling 5G
Nokia was once the biggest handset manufacturer in the world, but it failed to anticipate the popularity of internet-enabled touchscreen phones such as Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy and was knocked from its perch by rivals.
After selling its handset business to Microsoft, which the software giant later wrote off, Nokia concentrated on telecoms equipment.
It specialises in software and hardware used in telecoms, including the physical and cloud infrastructure people use when making a phone call or when using the internet, such as antennas and base stations.
In 2020, Nokia became a major beneficiary of Huawei being blocked from the UK’s 5G networks after striking a deal to become the largest equipment provider to BT.
But 5G equipment makers have been struggling as operators in the US and the EU cut spending.
Nokia and Swedish rival, Ericsson, have been trying to offset some of the weakness with higher sales to India, but 5G rollout has also been slowing down there.
Earlier this week Ericsson reported a fall in sales.
The firm has also laid off thousands of employees this year, and said on Tuesday the uncertainty affecting its business would persist into 2024.
Analyst Kester Mann of CCS Insight said that the telecoms industry should be “flying high, buoyed by unrelenting demand for its services”.
“Instead, countless questions continue to be posed around operators’ relevance and long-term future,” he said.
Technology companies, including telecoms firms, have been struggling as both domestic and business customers have been cutting back on spending because of factors including inflation and higher interest rates.
It has led to thousands of workers around the world losing their jobs over the past two years.
Companies including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Amazon and X, formerly Twitter, have all made redundancies.
However, tech workers are still in demand.
According to job posting firm Zip Recruiter, 80% of big tech employees who lost their jobs managed to find work within three months.
作为全球最大通信设备制造商之一，诺基亚目前面临着诸多挑战，包括全球经济增速放缓，以及手机运营商减少对基础设施的投资等等。
10月19日消息，据外媒报道，诺基亚为了应对业绩下滑和市场疲软的局面，宣布了新一轮裁员计划，将裁员1.4万人！
据报道，诺基亚19日公布三季度业绩，第三季度净销售额 49.8 亿欧元，同比下降 20%。预估 57 亿欧元；第三季度调整后营业利润 4.24 亿欧元，预估 5.564 亿欧元；经调整毛利率 39.2％，预估 38.9％。
与此同时，诺基亚宣布调整营运策略，目标是到 2026 年底总成本基础较 2023 年降低 8 亿至 12 亿欧元，这意味着人员开支将减少 10%-15%。诺基亚目前有 86000 名员工，该计划预计将使诺基亚的员工人数降至 72000-77000 名，即最多裁员14000人。
诺基亚及其竞争对手一直在努力应对美国等国家对5G设备需求放缓的问题，并试图通过增加在印度这一低利润市场的销量来抵消部分疲软需求的影响。
诺基亚的目标是到2026年实现8亿欧元（8.42亿美元）至12亿欧元的成本节省，该公司希望在2026年之前实现至少14%的长期可比营业利润率计划。
该公司在一份声明中表示，上述成本节约计划将使该公司的员工人数从目前的8.6万人减少至7.2万-7.7万人。“诺基亚预计将迅速采取行动，到2024年至少节省4亿欧元，到2025年再节省3亿欧元。”
诺基亚首席执行官Pekka Lundmark表示：“虽然我们第三季度的净销售额受到持续不确定性的影响，但预计第四季度我们的网络业务将出现更为正常的季节性改善。”
据资料显示，仅在过去的两年时间里，诺基亚的裁员人数就超过了1.1万人，相当于总员工的十分之一。虽然裁员是很常见的现象，但是诺基亚这种大规模、长期的裁员，最主要的原因或是还是其在5G布局方面的失利。
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