Nokia Becomes an Unemployment Sink Hole

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has let go 7,000 people since CEO Stephen Elop joined the company after a career at Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). He says Nokia will cut another 3,500 jobs. The firm announced it will shutter a plant in Cluj, Romania. Some of the jobs will be replaced by the “efficiency” of Asia plants. No matter what the reasons, Nokia joins a line of large multinational companies that have failed business plans that will cost thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of jobs.

The one thing politicians cannot do in the job creation process is to reverse the poor decisions made by large corporate boards and managements. Only so many infrastructure jobs or tax credits can reduce unemployment. These easily can be offset by executive incompetence. A glance at the troubles at Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), HP (NYSE: HPQ) or the U.S. Postal Service proves the argument. Stupidity is as great an enemy to employment as the recession is.

The difference between the economy and corporate management is that the GDP will eventually recover. A lack of executive competence will always be a factor in the jobs market.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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