Telecom gear vendor Nokia Siemens Networks said on Tuesday it would slash around 1,820 jobs, mostly in Finland and Germany, as the last part of its 2 billion euro ($2.6 billion) cost-cutting programme. The news comes a day after Canada's Nortel said it would cut 1,300 jobs as vendors try to cope with fierce competition for new business, subdued demand and falling prices reporteed Reuters.
"Continued challenging telecommunications market conditions have shown the need for further reductions," Nokia Siemens said in a statement.
Nokia Siemens said it aimed to cut up to 750 jobs in Finland and would close one of its sites employing 500 staff in Munich.
It said it had decided to sell a manufacturing site in Durach, Germany -- which employs some 500 -- to the plant's current management. It said it would also cut about 50 jobs in Egypt and 20 in the United States.
Nokia Siemens Networks -- a 50-50 joint venture of the world's top cellphone maker Nokia and German conglomerate Siemens -- started operations in April 2007 and shortly after launched a large lay-off programme.
The programme, which includes some 9,000 job cuts in total, is aimed to help boost its operating profit margin to 10 percent by the end of 2009. NSN had 60,200 staff at end-September.
Its underlying operating profit margin fell to 5.1 percent in the third quarter from 6.7 percent in the previous three months.
Nokia Siemens, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent are the leading players in the telecoms network market but have been increasingly challenged by Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in the last few years.