Mobile giant Nokia announced its plans to lay off 1,400 employees in Finland and outsource an additional 1,500 to Accenture.
The CEO of the Finnish Software Entrepreneurs, Jaakko Salminen, says that this is mostly good news to programmers.
“We’re in need of additional staff, and here comes this stimulus,” Salminen says.
Such statements could not contrast more with the attitudes at the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland.
“The shock was great, since 1,400 is a massive number, a historic one. White collar workers have never yet been laid off in such numbers,” says the union’s head Pertti Porokari.
Porokari hopes that this will not spell the end to some people’s careers—that they will, instead, be able to shift smoothly to work at another company. He says that the employment situation of those laid off from Nokia will also depend on whether the reductions will occur en masse.
“It is naturally easier to get a job in the capital region, but in Oulu it’s already considerably more challenging,” Porokari says.
Salminen of the Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association says that signs are already emerging that those departing from Nokia are starting up new companies.
The freed labour force might also draw new international companies to Finland. And the workforce is expected to expand still: there are estimates that Nokia’s subcontractors will announce even greater job cuts than Nokia itself.
