Microsoft makes 1,350 job cuts in Finland

Microsoft has confirmed that it will close its Finnish mobile phone unit and cut up to 1,350 jobs in the Nordic country.

The cuts, initially announced in May, are part of Microsoft’s plan to shed 1,850 jobs from its smartphone business.

Announcing plans to streamline the company’s smartphone hardware business, Microsoft had said in a statement, that 1,350 jobs would be eliminated in Finland where its smartphones have been designed. The other 500 jobs will be cut “globally”.

Microsoft’s chief shop steward in Finland, Kalle Kiili, had told news agencies that Microsoft will no longer be designing or manufacturing phones (at least for the time being).

Microsoft bought the troubled phone business in 2014 from Nokia, Finland’s biggest company.

The company wrote off $7.6 billion last year and cut 7,800 jobs to refocus its phone efforts. In May, it announced that it will be writing off an additional $950 million as part of its failed Nokia acquisition.

Just days before this, the company announced selling its feature phone business to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn, for $350 million. Under the deal, some 4,500 company’s employees were transferred to Foxconn’s subsidiary.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadela too had issued a statement saying, “We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation — with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same.” “We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms,” the statement added.