A recent report had claimed that Microsoft may announce job cuts as soon as this week. These job cuts may be the biggest for Microsoft in last 5 years and will impact ex-Nokia workforce as well.
Now, another report from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, which has a good reputation of being historically correct claims as many as 1000 of the job cuts may be in Finland and these will impact ex-Nokia workforce. This may mean one in five ex-Nokia employees losing job in Finland, as there are 4700 ex-Nokia employees working for Microsoft in Finland.
As per the report, Microsoft may close down former Nokia research and development unit in Oulu, northern Finland, which has 500 people, mainly working on software used in feature phones. The other 500 hundred job cuts may come from other Nokia locations in Finland.
This has been widely expected that Microsoft may trim the workforce post Nokia-Microsoft deal-closure, but was never hinted by Microsoft earlier. Also, Microsoft has always expressed desire to continue producing feature phones. But, if this report is correct, Microsoft may not be planning to continue with feature phones development for long.
