philb1965 Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Here we go again. 23% of Nokia Siemens workforce globally to get the push by the end of 2013. I've seen it coming so no shock for me and believe it or not the numbers are lower than I'd suspected. I'm just glad I'm not in my twenties just starting out. There doesn't seem to be many industries that you have any job security these days. Ho hum, my days in telecoms may be numbered, maybe a blessing? I'll be keeping the Z either way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK350Z Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 They dropped the smartphone ball. It happens, just ask Palm. Hope you get on somewhere else, having experience is half the battle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philb1965 Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 I agree, but we aren't the same company as Nokia. We make all the network equipment, base stations, switches etc......the infrastructure for all the calls and data....which we support and maintain. Nokia and Siemens are parent companies. It's modern work life unfortunately. Just shows that all companies are affected in this day and age. In my group we have more contractors than permanent staff so it will be I interesting to see where the cuts fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scubapics Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 I think everyone's days in telecoms is numbered. With Nokia, Nokia Siemens, Vertu, Ericsson (not to mention all the other telecoms companies in the last few years) all cutting jobs that means that there is a huge number of highly skilled engineers now all looking for the same handful of jobs. Bad times indeed and I don't see that it will ever recover as a lot of jobs have been outsourced to India, Poland and the Phillipines. China are now getting stronger in this market as well. Some companies are even importing people from oversees to work here because they will take a lower wage than the UK workforce in this industry. So there is sod all hope for people losing their jobs. Good luck to you. I hope you land on your feet. I hope it doesn't happen to me soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bronzee Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Companies just don't learn. Good luck mate, hope it all works out for the best. May end up a blessing in disguise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elfman Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 BT/Openreach are taking on new engineers so i got told by the CEO yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M13KYF Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 a shame, nokia phones were top of the class before the smartphones came along, lost there way by spending too much time on there op system and uninspiring design Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabbitstew Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 It is a shame but unfortunately job security is a thing of the past these days and has been for as long as i can remember. The only areas which seem to have job security are government or local council type jobs. Ive friends who have worked for my local council here for 20 years or more. They love it, extra days holiday per year, guarenteed pay rise each year, flexi time etc. Unfortunately in the private sector, my job history has always been very up and down. I must have been made redundant at least 3 times with companies folding or making cut backs over the last 18 years of working, so the old days of a "job for life" have long gone for most people. It is a shame to see Nokia downsizing, I grew up on Nokia phones when they were the best around. I remember there operating system & menus were so much easier to use than the competitions. I think where they fell over is that they kept trying to champion Symbian long after it came clear it was on its way out. Had they moved to using Android sooner, maybe that would have helped. But, what impressed me about Nokia, they had the bottle to make some really weird looking phones, as well as their more sensible ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris`I Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 The only areas which seem to have job security are government or local council type jobs. Ive friends who have worked for my local council here for 20 years or more. They love it, extra days holiday per year, guarenteed pay rise each year, flexi time etc. Nope even they're not safe. My mums worked for DWP in many guises over the years (30+ years) and they are trying to downsize her dept and doing the same with many others. Sheer madness as she works in fraud so the cases they take to court save them loads more money in the long run. Fortunately she's past retirement age (for her state pension, not for her work pension) so is in the position that if they do push her then she can just leave and quite happily enjoy the rest of her time, but she wants to stay as she enjoys it. They appear to be on another cycle of centralising all the depts again from a few years ago of making them all regional. Dont you just love them wasting out tax money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldel Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 A colleague of mine (am a consumer researcher) at an old company was at a meeting years back with Nokia a day after Apple launched iPhone. They were mocking it, saying that they know nothing about telecoms etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabbitstew Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 The only areas which seem to have job security are government or local council type jobs. Ive friends who have worked for my local council here for 20 years or more. They love it, extra days holiday per year, guarenteed pay rise each year, flexi time etc. Nope even they're not safe. My mums worked for DWP in many guises over the years (30+ years) and they are trying to downsize her dept and doing the same with many others. Yep, a lot of councils and places are chopping things about a bit, but 30 years in a job is still very good and shows it was reasonably secure for a long time. What puzzles me about councils is that they will happily make an employee redundant, then recruit them back as a contractor for more money! A colleague of mine (am a consumer researcher) at an old company was at a meeting years back with Nokia a day after Apple launched iPhone. They were mocking it, saying that they know nothing about telecoms etc. Well in all fairness Nokia was right. When the iphone came out it had phone related features which were akin to a 10 year old nokia. You couldnt set your own mp3 ring tone, couldnt send MMS, didnt have 3g, the camera was something like 2mb compared to the 5mb which nokias had, no memory card, no front camera, couldnt change the battery, bluetooth would only work on some accessories etc. etc... the list was endless. The only thing the iphone had going for it was that you could link it up to the itunes store. I remember I had a nokia at the time and I just copied my mp3`s straight to its memory card and played music that way as I had converted all my music collection to mp3`s years earlier - but if you were an ipod user and had invested a lot of time & money in buying tunes in itunes it was easier to just get an iphone and just sync it all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris`I Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 The only areas which seem to have job security are government or local council type jobs. Ive friends who have worked for my local council here for 20 years or more. They love it, extra days holiday per year, guarenteed pay rise each year, flexi time etc. Nope even they're not safe. My mums worked for DWP in many guises over the years (30+ years) and they are trying to downsize her dept and doing the same with many others. Yep, a lot of councils and places are chopping things about a bit, but 30 years in a job is still very good and shows it was reasonably secure for a long time. What puzzles me about councils is that they will happily make an employee redundant, then recruit them back as a contractor for more money! Funny you should say that, its exactly what I've told her to do. If they do let her go, theres no way they'll cope when shes gone so told her to go back as a contractor when they come knocking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabbitstew Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Funny you should say that, its exactly what I've told her to do. If they do let her go, theres no way they'll cope when shes gone so told her to go back as a contractor when they come knocking There was uproar in my local paper about my local council doing just this. They let some of their top guys retire early, gave them a big pension payout lump sum, then the next day had them back in at more money as contractors. I actually know some teachers who have exactly the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldel Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 The only areas which seem to have job security are government or local council type jobs. Ive friends who have worked for my local council here for 20 years or more. They love it, extra days holiday per year, guarenteed pay rise each year, flexi time etc. Nope even they're not safe. My mums worked for DWP in many guises over the years (30+ years) and they are trying to downsize her dept and doing the same with many others. Yep, a lot of councils and places are chopping things about a bit, but 30 years in a job is still very good and shows it was reasonably secure for a long time. What puzzles me about councils is that they will happily make an employee redundant, then recruit them back as a contractor for more money! A colleague of mine (am a consumer researcher) at an old company was at a meeting years back with Nokia a day after Apple launched iPhone. They were mocking it, saying that they know nothing about telecoms etc. Well in all fairness Nokia was right. When the iphone came out it had phone related features which were akin to a 10 year old nokia. You couldnt set your own mp3 ring tone, couldnt send MMS, didnt have 3g, the camera was something like 2mb compared to the 5mb which nokias had, no memory card, no front camera, couldnt change the battery, bluetooth would only work on some accessories etc. etc... the list was endless. The only thing the iphone had going for it was that you could link it up to the itunes store. I remember I had a nokia at the time and I just copied my mp3`s straight to its memory card and played music that way as I had converted all my music collection to mp3`s years earlier - but if you were an ipod user and had invested a lot of time & money in buying tunes in itunes it was easier to just get an iphone and just sync it all. The conversation then went on about how the future wasn't in smartphones and that Nokia would never be knocked off its perch. He said it was like a bunch of guys just gloating and laughing at other companies attempts to innovate, he was scared to even raise the point that the research he had conducted had shown a willingness by consumers at that time to try something new and take a big step forward and that they were tiring of the Nokia styling and features that had stagnated... Now all Nokia are good for from a handset perspective are cheap plastic ones in third world countries Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabbitstew Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 The conversation then went on about how the future wasn't in smartphones and that Nokia would never be knocked off its perch. He said it was like a bunch of guys just gloating and laughing at other companies attempts to innovate, he was scared to even raise the point that the research he had conducted had shown a willingness by consumers at that time to try something new and take a big step forward and that they were tiring of the Nokia styling and features that had stagnated... Now all Nokia are good for from a handset perspective are cheap plastic ones in third world countries Thats mad that they would say that. Even back then nokia were ahead of the game on smartphones with the symbian operating system, emails on phones, web browsing and all that kind of thing. Even with the nokia communicator and things like that being really early smartphones with proper keyboards etc.. Just goes to show how stupid some ceo`s and people are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldel Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 What CEO's think and say vs what researchers know in the business often is quite different... ...sometimes I run research, with a sample of thousands, who all point in a common direction - everyone is onboard with it except the CEO who thinks because his he or his wife doesn't like the idea it wont work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philb1965 Posted November 24, 2011 Author Share Posted November 24, 2011 Agreed Nokia did drop the ball big time. I can remember in 2000 seeing a prototype tablet...another missed opportunity. A lot of the work is going to China ( most of our r&d now) and India (remote support). Still need reactive people on the ground though. Our problem is we merged with Siemens going from about 20000 to 70000 people!!! I may well be ok as I work in a profitable part of the company, but there are a lot who don't and are very worried poor buggers. I'm also at a point where I wouldn't be bothered if I were to be paid off. It's the youngsters and people who have a lot of financial responsibilities I feel for. It's the scale of it I find amazing 23% of the workforce and probably more to come. Never mind, onwards and upwards, I'm sure it will all become clear over the next few months. Probably natural attrition will account for a fair amount of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choptop Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Hope you find another job soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.