HELSINKI - Finnish telecom giant Nokia said it would cut up to 14,000 job as profits fell on weakening demand for its 5G equipment in North America.
The announcement adds to a series of layoffs in the tech industry following a boom during Covid pandemic lockdowns.
"In the third quarter we saw an increased impact on our business from the macroeconomic challenges," CEO Pekka Lundmark said in a statement.
Nokia's savings programme is expected to reduce staffing to as low as 72,000, cutting costs by up to 1.2 billion euros by 2026, the company said.
The programme targets business areas Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services and corporate functions.
"The most difficult business decisions to make are the ones that impact our people," Lundmark noted.
Nokia reported that its profits reached 133 million euros in the third quarter, a 69 percent drop from the same period a year ago.
"The earnings were much weaker than expected and the outlook is more uncertain. So it's not looking that good in the short term for Nokia," Atte Riikola, an analyst at equity analysis firm Inderes, told AFP.
Despite the uncertainty in the third quarter, Nokia said it expects an "improvement in our network businesses in the fourth quarter."
But Riikola believed that Nokia's "estimates will come down pretty dramatically."
"There's a possibility for a negative profit warning," he added.