Nokia will lay off up to 700 people globally, mostly in its enterprise business operation, in a move to increase efficiency and improve competitiveness, an Associated Press report said.
The Associated Press report said the layoffs, expected within the next few months, include some 340 workers in Finland.
The cuts will affect research and development, related sales and marketing, as well as internal information technology operations, Nokia said.
Nokia said it will try to transfer some of the affected workers to different posts.
'We have a number of positions open in Nokia, and the impacted people are naturally priority candidates for positions that match their competencies,' Juha Akras, SVP in the company's human resources department, was quoted by the report as saying. 'We have a good track record from previous years of redeploying employees in similar situations.'
In 2006, Nokia rotated 10,000 personnel into new positions within the Finland-based group, he said.
Nokia said it plans to 'sharpen its focus on markets where there is greater return on investment' in its enterprise solutions unit.
Nokia employed 68,500 people at the end of last year, an increase of 16% on 2005.