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Brief: Nokia getting rid of 220 employees in Japan working on R&D, brings total to 550

Categories: Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 8:41 AM

Just last week we reported that Nokia will be cutting 330 jobs in Finland and Denmark, jobs in the company’s R&D department. Today Nokia has announced that they’re letting go of 220 more R&D employees, this time in Japan:

Nokia reduces R&D operations in Japan

Tokyo, Japan – As part of its global efforts to align its research and development (R&D) operations to be in line with its focused portfolio of future products, Nokia will be reducing its R&D activities in Japan. As previously announced last week, Nokia plans to reduce some of its R&D activities in Finland and Denmark.

Today’s announcement will impact approximately 220 employees in Japan. The total number would represent slightly more than 1% of Nokia’s R&D personnel globally.

Nokia will continue its significant sourcing activities in Japan. Japanese manufacturers are important partners who play a critical role in Nokia’s global supply-chain strategy and with whom Nokia continues to develop its world-class logistics operations.

The Japanese operation of Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia’s network infrastructure business, is not affected by this announcement and continues uninterrupted.

Vertu, Nokia’s exclusive line of handcrafted mobile phones for the luxury market, will also continue operations in Japan unaffected by today’s announcement.

That’s 550 research and development people gone in one week. What the hell is going on?! Oh yea, that’s right, Nokia reported their first loss in a decade last quarter.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.