Nokia coughs up €200m over axed German workers

Nokia will pay €200m to compensate workers for the closure of its mobile phone plant in Germany. It will also establish a transfer company to help staff for at least one year. Some 2,300 employees will lose their jobs at Bochum. Nokia was widely critisised for the closure of its plant in Bochum and infuriated many German …

[Tom]

Are my maths wrong here??

Going on the principal that all workers are equal (of course they wont be) $200 million will give each employee $86k each.. which is a rather tasty piece of compensation for anyone.

[John Band]

Sounds about right

$86k is €50k, which is roughly what a skilled worker in Germany would get paid in a year. A nice payoff, but not unusual by local standards...

[Chris Bradshaw]

@ Tom

Your maths are right, and I agree that the compensation will not be on an equal basis.

But you seem to have forgotten taxes...

[Robin]

@John Band

Actually Tom's Math was wrong, since the pay off, if calculated his way is 86K in Euros not $. I doubt very much all of that figure will be going to ex-employees (at least not directly). But I agree that a 50K Euro payoff would not be unusual for a skilled worker in Germany.

[Charlie Clark]

It's not about a pay off

If you just give people the money then they will spend it (and have to spend it before qualifying for unemployment benefit) which doesn't really benefit anyone. The main aim is to try and retrain the workers and find new employment for them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Normal in Europe

Booting workers without real, proved economic reasons usually means you have to pay them all off with AT LEAST 1 years salary here in France too. (Unless you want your company dragged through prolonged difficult legal proceedings.)

Up the workers!

[Andus McCoatover]

Happened to me at Nokia Siemens Networks..

...when I took voluntary redundancy last year after 12 years (Hobsons choice).

€55K sounded great, but the taxman in Finland thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

I was left with half that. Plus, my insurance won't pay out till Nov this year (I walked September last).

If I understand correctly, the German (ex-Siemens employees) firees of Nokia Siemens Networks had arranged a deal with the unions (IG-Metall, IIRC) to get something like 2-3 years layoff pay, depending on length of service.

So, it's not so good after all, bearing in mind this is probably a US-style "Up to" figure, and may include things like outplacement help etc., so the ex-employees would receive substantially less.

Still unemployed, BTW, but now a full-time 52-year-old student of Finnish language. Bugger all left for me except driving or cleaning here...