Nokia leaving Westchester

Nokia Corp., the Finnish communications giant and world”™s leading manufacturer of mobile phones, will close its U.S. office in White Plains as it carries out a global consolidation and shrinks its workforce by 7,000 employees over the next two years.

In the U.S., approximately 500 jobs will be eliminated as the company reduces its research and development activities at its Nokia Inc. offices in San Diego, Calif., and at 102 Corporate Park Drive in White Plains.

The White Plains office, which Nokia opened in 2006 after an approximately $30 million renovation of the long-vacant 103,000-square-foot building, will cease operations, said Nokia Corp. spokeswoman Henna Pelkola in Espoo, Finland.

Nokia”™s employment numbers in Westchester and its timetable for pulling out of the county were not immediately available. The company has employed about 300 workers here.

Sunnyvale, Calif., where Nokia this year opened a 156,000-square-foot office and consolidated its San Francisco Bay area operations, will become the central site for Nokia”™s North American sales and marketing operations, Pelkola said.

The West Coast shift in operations serves Nokia”™s newly formed partnership with Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. The companies this month completed an agreement to jointly develop a new global mobile ecosystem and reported significant progress in developing the first Nokia smartphone products incorporating the Windows Phone platform.

Nokia also will transfer its Symbian software activities, which includes about 3,000 employees, to its new strategic partner Accenture. Along with that move, another 4,000 Nokia employees will lose their jobs, including those in White Plains, by the end of 2012. Most of the layoffs will be in Denmark, Finland and Great Britain, Nokia officials said.

Nokia expects to save 1 billion euros in 2013 when the consolidations and workforce cuts are completed.

The company said all affected employees can stay on the Nokia payroll through the end of 2011. The personnel reductions will occur in phases, linked to the roll-out of Nokia”™s planned product and services portfolio.