This will be their sixth departure plan in less than eight years, since the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2016. It is therefore between weariness and fatalism that Nokia employees in France are waiting to know, in the coming days, the scale of job cuts planned as part of the global savings program announced on October 13, 2023 by the telecoms equipment manufacturer. The Finnish group wants to cut 9,000 to 14,000 positions worldwide, which represents up to 16% of its workforce, with the majority of departures being concentrated in 2024 and 2025.
The impact of the plan in France has not yet been revealed, Nokia must first complete the collective contractual termination, launched in 2023, before being able to make new departures. But the unions expect a cut of around 10% in the workforce of Nokia Networks France, the group’s main company in France, which would represent a little more than 200 job cuts.
Nokia Submarine Networks (NSN), the Finn’s second French entity, specializing in submarine cables, a booming sector, should not be affected. “At Nokia France, the proposed changes will be made in accordance with global guidelines in force in all markets”indicates to World the management of the Finnish group, without further details.
“Many employees feel lost”
For Nokia, this “program to reset its cost base”i.e. the plan aimed at saving 800 million to 1.2 billion euros by 2026, must “enable us to better position ourselves for longer-term growth and cope with current market uncertainty”. The Finnish group was particularly shaken by the loss, in December 2023, of a major mobile telephone equipment contract for the American operator AT&T, one of its historic customers, which alone represented 5% to 8 % of group sales in this area. The blow is all the harder as the United States is the most profitable market in the sector, much more so than India where the equipment manufacturer is currently experiencing strong growth.
Nokia employees in France, many of whom come from Alcatel-Lucent, also a great collector of social plans (a good fifteen between 2000 and its acquisition in 2016), know the cyclical nature of their industry, depending on the arrival new mobile telephony technologies (3G, 4G, 5G and soon 6G). But “between the consequences of the savings plan and the reorganization of the mobile division”also launched at the end of 2023, “many employees feel lost”, notes Olivier Marcé, CFE-CGC central union delegate at Nokia France. Creation, 1er January, of a new entity called Nokia Business Services bringing together support functions (human resources, finance, legal, etc.) raises fears of a possible relocation of these services to lower-cost countries.
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