Nokia slashes 10,000 jobs after announcing more losses

Nokia's share price has fallen on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange today (June 14th), as the Finnish phone company has announced it is cutting another 10,000 staff from its global workforce.

The organisation warned that it is likely to post second-quarter losses from its mobile phone business and is looking to book additional restructuring charges of around €1 billion (£1.3 billion).

Nokia's cuts bring its total announced redundancies to more than 40,000 since Stephen Elop took over as the chief executive in 2010.

The boss stated: "These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia's long-term competitive strength."

Since February 2011, Nokia's shares have plunged by more than 70 per cent.

The company will close down its last remaining plant in Finland, although it will continue to conduct research and development (R&D) at the Salo unit.

Its other R&D facilities at Ulm in Germany and Burnaby in Canada are also due to cease operations.

The company is hopeful it will complete its programme of redundancies and closures by the end of 2013.

Its overall aim is to slash core operating expenditure to €3 billion a year and it expects the process to cost in the region of €650 million in 2012 and €600 million next year.

As part of this upheaval, Nokia is selling its luxury handset manufacturing arm Vertu, with the handsets produced under this brand comprising if precious metals such as platinum, while some are encrusted with diamonds and sell for as much as £200,000.

Vertu is being acquired by private equity investor EQT for an undisclosed amount that is estimated to be around €200 million.

At 12:42 BST, Nokia was down 8.4 per cent on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, with its share price languishing at €2.06.

This shows just how far the mobile manufacturer has fallen in the space of a few months, as its value in November 2011 peaked at €5.07 per share.