Ericsson has revealed plans to cut around 3,000 jobs in Sweden as part of an operational restructuring.
The company will reduce its headcount in production, R&D and sales and administration, through a combination of voluntary and forced redundancies and measures including outsourcing.
Ericsson currently has around 16,000 employees in Sweden, but plans to cut around 1,000 positions in production, 800 in R&D and 1,200 in other operations.
But the company also plans to recruit around 1,000 R&D positions in Sweden over the next three years, mostly from universities. The shake-up is aimed at ensuring the company has the talent required to take a leading role in R&D for next-generation technologies.
“Ericsson is going through a large transformation. We continue to have a strong focus on R&D, and since many years, most Ericsson employees work in software development and services, rather than hardware production,” Ericsson CEO Jan Frykhammar commented.
The cutbacks form part of the vendor's ongoing cost and efficiency program, which aims to achieve savings of 9 billion krona ($1.05 billion) during 2017.
Ericsson also recently decided to relocate the position of chief HR officer to be closer to the CEO and company leadership team. This has resulted in the planned departure of incumbent Bina Chaurasia.