In a move that clearly demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain non-Chinese and Indian manufacturing, Nokia has closed its German Bochum site, laying off or moving all of its 2,300 employees
Although Nokia is moving manufacturing to other plants in Europe, their productivity will come under scrutiny to keep up with its huge plants in China and India. Nokia will discontinue the production of mobile devices at the site by mid-2008.
Nokia will also discontinue other non-production activities at the Bochum site which means it will have to sell the automotive business which is based there, and it says it is in negotiations with Sasken Technologies to sell a software R&D entity based there.
Nokia argued that renewing the site would mean additional investment but still would not make the plant globally competitive.
“The planned closure of the Bochum production site is necessary to secure Nokia’s long-term competitiveness,” said Veli Sundb’ck, Executive Vice President of Nokia and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Nokia GmbH. Nokia will start the consultations with the employee representatives as soon as possible. Nokia has not yet established a cost for the closure yet and says this will be determined throughout the employee consultation process and reported in its next figures.