HELSINKI: World leading mobile phone maker Nokia's new partnership with Microsoft could entail up to 6,000 layoffs in Finland, the head of a large Finnish union said on Monday.
"In the worst case scenario, it could be up to around 6,000 (job cuts)," said Antti Rinne, the head of Finland's Union of Salaried Employees (TU), which counts some 130,000 members.
He told AFP however that "I think the realistic figure is between 3,000 or 4,000."
Nokia, which has seen its global market share shrink from around 40 percent to 32 percent in just over two years, currently employs some 20,000 people in Finland, out of a worldwide workforce of 132,000 people.
In an attempt to handle the ever harsher competition from Apple and Google in the smartphone market, Nokia announced last Friday it would begin phasing out its Symbian platform and instead shift to Microsoft's and use the US giant's Windows Phone operating system.
The company's new chief executive, Stephen Elop, also said Nokia would see "substantial" layoffs in Finland and around the world.
The company's research and development divisions, which work on developing its propriatary Symbian and Meego platforms are expected to account for a large part of the layoffs.
Nokia employees "are very afraid about this situation because they know they're changing the whole system. They know they can't keep all their jobs in the future," Rinne said.
He said he expected the Finnish job cuts at least to be announced "in June or July."
Around 1,500 subcontractor employees might also lose their jobs amid heightened restructuring costs, the union representative said.
The expected job-cuts within Nokia, the Nordic country's industrial heavyweight, provoked protests from the government in Helsinki.
"There is a big risk that it will be a blow to Finland's research and development sector," Labour Minister Anni Sinnemaeki told AFP Friday.
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