Nokia is laying off 550 employees across several countries in its network equipment-making division because of a "reduced need for hardware R&D work," the handset maker announced Wednesday. The Future Lab researches future networks and future content applications, and is intended to stimulate the developer community in technologies such as multimedia messaging services and telecommunications networking such as 3G.
The cutbacks affect research and development centers run by Nokia Networks, the Nokia unit developing and manufacturing mobile and landline network equipment, Nokia Australia marketing manager Antony Wilson told ZDNet Australia. The staff reductions are already taking place, say Nokia.
"They're consolidating activities so instead of having several smaller R&D units they're consolidating to a fewer larger entities, so they'll still be conducting research but they'll be making it more efficient," said Wilson.
Like the rest of the telecommunications industry, Nokia isn't expecting much growth in the mobile phone market this year. In late January, Nokia warned of already slowing sales and profits because buyers were still holding back on spending.
The world's No. 1 handset maker said it will close a Santa Rosa, California, broadband research center and discontinue all research projects at a Kista, Sweden, office. Researchers in Finland are also under threat.
Nokia also plans to reduce the number of employees at a United Kingdom research center and is investigating similar cutbacks at a nearby center, the handset maker said.
Nokia employed 51,748 people at the end of last year. Nokia Networks employed about 17,000 people.
