Tech workers in Finland regroup, refocus

Helsinki

KIMMO Kalliola knows the feeling that thousands of Finns have been dealing with over the last couple of years. He spent more than a decade working on geolocation positioning at Nokia, a highly technical job, but the Finnish tech giant hit hard times. In late 2012, Mr Kalliola and 10,000 others at the company were laid off. "I remember those sleepless nights," said Mr Kalliola, 42, who holds a PhD in radio engineering.

Troubles at Nokia, once a source of national pride for Finns, have hardly slowed. Last year, the company sold its once-dominant mobile phone business to Microsoft. Within three months, Microsoft announced 18,000 layoffs, many of them in Finland. Further job cuts are now underway; Microsoft said that it would reduce its Finnish workforce by up to 2,300 employees, or roughly two-thirds of its local workforce. Nokia now focuses almost entirely on its telecom infrastructure business.