Oh man. The Deutschers are der pissed off. After Motorola and BenQ took flight from Germany, Nokia was for a time the main choice for many German wireless customers. That has changed after the entire country got Blitzkrieged by the Finnish mobile behemoth this week.
The massive plant Nokia maintains in Bochum will now be closing, leaving about 2,300 German Nokia employees without jobs. That doesn't even count all the ancillary jobs that will go by the wayside as well.
Where is Nokia moving those jobs you ask? Well, even if you didn't, the answer is Romania. WHAT? (Those damn Romanian goobacks are takin' all our jjjjoooobs.) Clearly Nokia wants what every global corporate entity wants, namely cheap labor to help them fatten their margins.
A virulent backlash has started against the company now, with regular citizens and even government agencies vowing to dump the brand wholesale... even banning the brand in some government offices.
Ouch.
This of course all ties into the new EU economy model, the efficacy of which is very debatable on both sides. As an example... I'm sure that the town in Romania where the new plant will go is throwing a party right now.
We will continue to watch this story and update as it evolves.
More on the EU angle at Forbes.com.
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