Stefan Mileschin

In case you blinked again and missed it, Nokia is axing 4,000 more jobs, all in its manufacturing arm, as announced in last year’s restructuring plan.

The - exclusively - factory jobs in Nokia business units in Hungary (2,300), Finland (1,000) and Mexico (700) follow Stephen Elop’s masterplan of killing off the manufacturing arm and sourcing everything from Asian sweatshops factories, which offer more competitive conditions than its European and American counterparts.

According to analysts, shedding Nokia’s massive manufacturing arm is a good thing, reported Reuters, and was eagerly anticipated by investors.

These had been none too pleased with the 73 percent break in the company’s Q4 earnings, but the company line remains that sales of its new Lumia phones are good. Its partnership with Microsoft is ever so slowly gaining traction with over 1 million Lumias sold between mid-November and December 31st. Continued debate about the bugginess of Lumia devices aside, sales results don’t seem too bad for the doom-and-gloom forecast for the Finnish company.

Lumia 700 and 800 series smartphones are currently sourced from Compal Communications, we are told. However, previous rumours that Nokia will keep Lumia 900 devices manufactured in-house seem to lose relevance, as the Finnish phone designer must lop off its factories as fast as it can to regain investor trust.

The job cuts add up to 30,000 so far but should continue throughout 2012, as more and more manufacturing is moved to Asian contractors.

The Swingin' Stephen Elop told us at Mobile World Congress last year that job cuts are merely a new life journey for all involved, and that ex employees should consider losing their livelihoods an opportunity.

http://news.techeye.net/business/nok...actory-workers