Nokia Cuts 600 Jobs

Finnish mobile giant Nokia has announced that it is trimming down its operations by cutting over 600 positions, mainly in marketing and sales departments.

The Nokia Research Center (NRC), the business unit that explores and develops technologies that will be available in the marketplace in five to ten years, will also focus on fewer research areas from now on.

Like many businesses, Nokia is feeling the nasty sting of the economic downturn. Its recently announced Q3 earnings weren't spectacular either (down over 28 percent on a year earlier), so these lay-offs don't exactly come unexpectedly. It's easy enough to find the irony when you look at the two news releases side by side, but I think Nokia is actually making the right strategic move by shifting its focus to custom internet services for countries where there is much room for growth and very specific needs.

-excerpt Washington Post

Sprint Plans to Cut Jobs

Posted by Marguerite Reardon
CNet News.com

Sprint Nextel is preparing to cut thousands of jobs, according to the The Wall Street Journal.

The company's new CEO Dan Hesse is supposedly trying to show investors that he is serious about cutting costs, the newspaper's Web site reported late on Monday. A Sprint representative declined to comment on the story.

Exactly how many people could lose their jobs is not yet known. Last year the company cut about 5,000 jobs. At the end of the last quarter Sprint reported it had roughly 60,000 employees.

Sprint is the third largest cell phone company in the U.S. behind AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Investors have been unhappy with Sprint's performance for sometime, which actually led to the company's previous CEO, Gary Forsee being forced out in October. Hesse took over as CEO in December.

Read the entire article by Marguerite Reardon HERE.

Alcatel-Lucent Plans to Cut 12,500 Jobs

Hey John Brown, what's up with the layoffs at Alcatel-Lucent? I've got a Recruiter job open in Chicago if you are interested? Hint - hint - wink - wink

Check out the Forbes.com low-down on Alcatel-Lucent, HERE.