Nokia closing German plant, slashing up to 2,300 jobs

Despite some encouraging financials out of Espoo as of late, Nokia is looking to cut costs and slim down in its effort to keep its paws firmly around the coveted title of number one cellphone manufacturer in the world. Its Bochum, Germany plant bears the brunt of this round of belt tightening, which will be closed by mid-2008; all told, a total of 2,300 jobs may be cut in the process. Nokia is smack in the middle of migrating some of its production capabilities to cheaper countries, with a Romanian plant -- which costs one-tenth to operate what a German plant does, apparently -- taking on much of the load. For what it's worth, Germany is apparently an extraordinarily pricey place to shut down a plant and lay off workers, so with any luck, the send-off will be a prosperous one for these ex-Nokians.

[Zak @ Jan 15th 2008 5:43PM]

Nokia, connecting people with the unemployment line.

[Andrew @ Jan 17th 2008 5:25PM]

And in other news: In Romania people are overjoyed at being hired by Nokia. Parties in the streets of Bucharest and elsewhere.

[fdgdfdfdfg @ Jan 15th 2008 5:54PM]

Funny fact is that it seems that Nokia is using money that it was given by the state in order to secure that production facility to shift the jobs to Romania. The state of Nordrhein-Westfalen and the German federation are now checking whether there are legal means to get these subsidies back.

[one @ Jan 16th 2008 6:57AM]

true :/ im from Bochum and i know some persons working at Nokia

[Fredster @ Jan 16th 2008 4:34PM]

Yeah, and some of the money they got in the 90's....so good luck with that! Bla, bla, bla!

[karts41 @ Jan 15th 2008 6:02PM]

NOKIA
DisConnecting People

[Pro7 @ Jan 15th 2008 7:10PM]

Nokia should fire all their designers. Their phones look like they were designed in 2001. Bulky and ugly, boring...

[Rex @ Jan 15th 2008 7:54PM]

Um, yea, "boring" phones. That must be why they have are the number one manufacturer in standard and smartphones, and have more marketshare than Motorola, Samsung, Sony-E and Apple combined... * sarcasm *

[Andrew @ Jan 17th 2008 5:17PM]

You do know that Nokia is the No 1 cellphone company in the world? The US is a 3rd world country in terms of cellphones (because of the telecoms industry). Nokia has some great designs and a lot of it made for Europeans by Europeans. So it would not surprise me if you don't like all of their designs. But, we, sure do.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jan 15th 2008 9:14PM]

Nokia Connecting People should be changed to

Nokia
Firing People.

[[e-mail] @ Jan 15th 2008 11:39PM]

when did we start caring about the germans?
i thought they were the enemy...

[Martin @ Jan 16th 2008 4:14AM]

That was long time ago. Now you are the enemy for saying this. I'll have to send some of my german friends to give you an advice.

Nokia rocks.
Too bad they are closing this but "globalization" is like this. Nike, adidas and others where also migrating their production to cheaper places. They have to spend all this savings in Marketing so they can sell more phones.

[Bad Beaver @ Jan 16th 2008 7:46AM]

No sir, YOU are boring.

[Bad Beaver @ Jan 16th 2008 7:48AM]

"but "globalization" is like this"

It only "is like that" because we allow it to be. An attitude of willing acceptance or indifference is not helpful. Not at all.

[Andrew @ Jan 17th 2008 5:19PM]

The sad, sad state of the American education system. Textbooks from around the second world war.. Oh, and crappy spelling. "Your_boring", what's that supposed to mean? Your boring email address? Or are you trying to say "you're boring"?

[Pro7 @ Jan 16th 2008 4:49AM]

Rex put a N95 into your pocket and you'll probably understand what I mean. Than look at the N82. The N95 and the N82 look like phones designed in 2001. There is nothing special about their design. The OSX on iphones is so much more powerful. When it's cracked it's able to do so much more than any nokia on earth. It can set custom ringtones, send music via bluetooh, and so on. There is one more thing it can do, a nokia will never be able to. It can run Nintendo games. Rumors say that a PSP emulator is also on the way.

[Pro7 @ Jan 16th 2008 4:53AM]

oops, many typos in my post.

[SteveMB @ Jan 16th 2008 8:06AM]

Removable battery? That's SO 2001.

[Got Beef @ Jan 16th 2008 6:08AM]

It's always funny to hear deluded iPhone fanbois speaking about ONE emulator while Symbian emulators have been around for years now, including a C64 one and several others found for example here: http://fms.komkon.org/EmuSymbian/

[Bad Beaver @ Jan 16th 2008 7:44AM]

Damn, just when Nokia started to build good phones again. Now it will be embarrassing to show them in public here in Germany.

These pathetic displays of corporate greed have to come to an end.

[Andrew @ Jan 17th 2008 5:21PM]

Corporate greed?! What rubbish! It's not like Siemens (cellphones) managed to survive in Germany... It's the costs, stupid. And your *harsh* employment laws.

[uberfu @ Jan 16th 2008 10:52AM]

makes their tagline kind of ironic then - huh?

[Marcus @ Jan 16th 2008 1:21PM]

When you are talking about the Germans like Adidas etc... with Nokia here in Germany is another a big mess.

They got 90 Mio EUR subsidies from the gov to finance the plant in Bochum. Now, when the subsidies are off, they go to the next country. To the very very cheap in loans: Hungary and Romanian. I hope the QM of the Nokia mobiles goes also down.

My family and I will never by a Nokia mobile. Never!

[Fredster @ Jan 16th 2008 4:42PM]

Sure, maybe they got 90 millions, but how fucking much money have they invested in the plant and in Germany in total??? They've been there for 20 years dude!! If they (Bochum) wouldn't have totally screwed it with the N76, which they were completly responsible of (design, development, quality), from beginning to the end, they might have stayed a bit longer. Dude, you have no idea what they have done and what they have tried to do for Bochum, you don't have a clue just stick to your Siemens!!! Wake up!

[Marcus @ Jan 17th 2008 1:28AM]

Rookie of the IT, I think you have no knowledge what all the workers have done for NOKIA... Its not only Nokia, the company, the workers and employees are the golden key for there quality and the situation as marketleader in the world.

[Fredster @ Jan 17th 2008 5:17AM]

Sure, but look around a bit boy, what IS made in Gemany? What electronic device can you say that you have at home that is made in Germany?? What about you clothers? Sure, no need to mentiion that!! Get real! It's no surprise here that they're bailing Germany! Crap quality on the phones made in Bochum doesn't make it any more attractive for them to stay there!

And i really DO know what's going on there...They should have left already 5 years ago!

[Marcus @ Jan 17th 2008 10:16AM]

An other point is that the company Nokia gives the guidelines to the quality. Note the workers...

There is no reason to close this plant in Bochum, if the personnel costs will only be 5% of the whole costs. Only to take the 90 Mio EUR from the gov and then away.

There are many things developed from or in Germany and then copied, taken over or stolen. Look the way to China / Asia or America.

And since the whole things are not more "Made in West-Germany", my dear, the quality is bad. Right! And in my short 40 years not more in the quality-line I know from the past. Only cheap plastic material produced in Taiwan from the US.

Did I mention that all my Siemens Handys (mobile phones W/O BENQ) in the past are the best and reliable mobiles around the globe?

But I see, you are not really involved in this bad situation and are writing silly kid-stuff w/o knowledge from Germany...

[Tim @ Jan 18th 2008 9:20AM]

Boycott Nokia mobile phones! Stop these insane managers!

They collectet in total 88,000,000 EUROs of subsidies for the factory in Germany. Since the contract ran out in September 2006 they looked for new subsidees in other countries. And they finally found a 33,000,000 EURO-subsidy in Romania paid by the EU-Council. And this is the only reason why they go there, nothing else. It is really unbelievable a company can ruin the future of 4000 people and their familes like that.

Currently there is a boycott going on all over Germany. The sales of Nokia mobile phones and other equipment went down drastically. And Germany is a very important market for Nokia, since they have a market share of tremendous 60% there !!! Now they will lose many clients among the 82,000,000 Germans. Figure out the losses! The stock price will be affected certainly. So better get rid of them very quickly.

By the way, the plant in Germany is very profitable and there is no reason to shut it down. Nokia claims the wages in Germany are much higher than in Romania - this very exagerated. But another fact is way more interesting: The labour costs make only a 5% of the total production costs!! Nokia is only going for profit which will come mainly through the subsidies. Really disgusting! So please:

Boycott Nokia! Stop buying mobile phones from Nokia!

[hmm @ Apr 1st 2008 9:37AM]

NOKIA IS a capitalistic bastard !!!!

with 5 per cent labour costs their arguments are rubbish !!

"old" europe should fight together to stop moving work out of Germany or England or France... especially Germany with its high quality products !