Nokia Siemens to cut Australian staff

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Nokia Siemens has confirmed staff in Australia and New Zealand are likely to be made redundant as part of a €1 billion ($1.4 billion) cost cutting program revealed this week.

The Finnish-German joint networking equipment venture expects to cut its workforce by a quarter by 2013.

Head of global media relations, Ben Roome, confirmed to iTnews local cuts were among the mix. He would not put a figure on how many people will be asked to leave in the region.

The company will “engage with employee representatives in accordance with country-specific legal requirements to find socially responsible means to address the reduction needs,” Roome said.

He said local cuts would not be random and could not be correlated to the global percentage of job reductions.

Cuts are likely to hit the company’s fixed-line business hardest as it moves to focus on mobile.

“Business areas not consistent with the new strategy are planned to be divested or managed for value,” Roome said.

He added Nokia Siemens would work hard with customers to ensure any transition is managed smoothly and efficiently.

Kordia-owned service provider Orcon is one of the region’s larger fixed-line customers for the vendor, using the company’s DSLAMs and customer premises equipment for its unbundled local loop DSL service.

Nokia Siemens Networks has also won several contracts to supply equipment for the National Broadband Network but notably lost to rivals Ericsson and Huawei in bidding for major LTE contracts in Australia.

It is the second in a round of cuts announced by Nokia Siemens this year, after it revealed in August it would cull 1500 jobs from its GSM and WiMAX divisions.