Nokia to slash 10,000 jobs worldwide

Nokia announced on Thursday that it will slash up to 10,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2013 as part of an accelerated cost reduction program at the Finnish cellphone maker. In premarket trading, shares of Nokia in the U.S. dropped 9 percent. In a statement, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said, “These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia’s long-term competitive strength.”

Nokia plans to close research and development facilities in Canada and Germany in efforts to reduce cost. The company also plans to focus more on the development of its Lumia mobile device. Lumia, which uses a Microsoft operating system, is Nokia’s attempt to challenge Google and Apple in the cellphone market.