Nokia, the Finnish telecoms giant, has announced it will cut up to 14,000 jobs by the end of 2026 in order to reduce organisational costs.

This comes off the back of the company’s 20% reduction in sales disclosed in their interim Q3 2023 report, citing macroeconomic uncertainty and higher interest rates pressuring operator spending.

Nokia says they are expecting to end up with a workforce of 72,000 to 77,000 employees by 2026, compared to the 86,000 employees they have today.

The telecoms company has been cutting jobs since 2015, and the new round of layoffs will see their workforce decrease by at least a further 9,000 around the globe.

Pekke Lundmark, the president and CEO, said that their Q3 results, while arguably poor, “demonstrated resilience” in their operating margin, admitting their weakness was in net sales.

“Cloud computing and AI revolutions will not materialise without significant investments in networks that have vastly improved capabilities,” he said. “However, given the uncertain timing of the market recovery, we are now taking decisive action…”

The lay-offs will take place around three levels: strategic, operational, and cost. Essentially Nokia aims to streamline their operations by giving business groups more operational autonomy, embedding sales teams into business groups, and resetting their cost-base.

Based on this, it may be reasonable to project that sales and business consultant teams may be affected by the job cuts, though Nokia has not yet said which departments or countries will be hit by the layoffs.

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Nokia fell from its top spot as a handset manufacturer years ago with the advent of smartphones, pioneered by Apple and Samsung. Nokia then turned its focus to telecoms, and is currently in partnership with BT as its primary equipment provider.

As budgets tighten, however, and 5G rollouts slow, Nokia’s business model has taken a hit yet again.