Finnish telecoms giant Nokia is to shed about 1,000 employees, 4% of its workforce, in its networks division by the end of the year.
The move was expected and followed a profit warning earlier this month when Nokia slashed its growth forecast for 2001 by half and predicted growth in global mobile phone sales of about 10% for the year.
In a statement, Nokia said it would eliminate between 900 and 1,000 jobs in the networks division which employs some 23,000 of Nokia's worldwide staff of 60,000.
The company said it expected the cuts to be completed by the end of the year.
Nokia's network division has been particularly hard hit by the delay in the roll-out of next generation mobile telephone technology and services known as GPRS, or 2.5G, and for third generation, or 3G, products which will start to become available to consumers only next year.
Nokia's problems are being felt by others in the networks business, like Ericsson and Nortel who have both made large job cuts this year.
Nokia's networks unit accounted for 25% of group sales and operating profit last year.
