Up to 6000 Nokia jobs reportedly to go as it moves to Windows Phone

Nokia is set to announce significant job cuts in the next few weeks as it moves to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 platform, it is reported.

Bloomberg states that 38% of the Finnish company’s global R&D workforce could be under threat, equating to 6000 people.

Those figures are from Pro, Finland’s largest private sector office workers’ union, and currently unconfirmed by Nokia. However, it seems likely that a significant number of workers would be surplus to requirements as the company moves to a third-party operating system to power the majority of its handsets.

Nokia has a significant number of Symbian specialist development staff who would simply not be needed as the OS is transitioned into what CEO Stephen Elop described at a Mobile World Congress press conference in February as “Legacy” status.

Despite the impending wind-down of Symbian, Nokia is continuing to push the platform, having today launched an updated version of the OS and two new Symbian handsets – the E6 and X7.

The actual scale of job cuts is expected to be announced at the end of April. Meanwhile, Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 handset is in development and is expected to ship in early 2012.