HELSINKI/PARIS (Reuters) - Telecom network equipment maker Nokia (HE:NOKIA) is planning to cut thousands of jobs globally, including 1,400 in Germany and 1,300 in its native Finland, as part of a cost-cutting programme following the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent (PA:ALUA) earlier this year.
In France, Nokia said on Wednesday it will cut only 400 jobs, but will also create 500 posts in research and development, in line with a promise to the French government last year when it was negotiating the Alcatel deal.
"The pledges made by Nokia when it bought Alcatel-Lucent have been kept," said Frédéric Aussedat, a representative of the CFE-CGC union in France.
Nokia declined to give a total figure for global job cuts. The company employs about 6,850 people in Finland, 4,800 in Germany, 4,200 in France and around 104,000 around the world.
"This (1,300) is a terrible figure, we have rather difficult employment situation in the sector to begin with," Pertti Porokari, chairman of the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland, said. "Seems that Finnish workers have lost this match (against the French)."
Nokia took control of Franco-American Alcatel-Lucent in January following its 15.6 billion euro (13 billion pounds) all-share offer, intended to help it compete with Sweden's Ericsson (ST:ERICb) and China's Huawei [HWT.UL] in a market where limited growth and tough competition are pressuring prices.
Nokia is seeking 900 million euros of operating cost synergies from the Alcatel deal by 2018.