Many people in Bochum blame Nokia for a large part of the town’s difficulties, which include a ten percent unemployment rate.
”Nokia made a lot of money here, but they left to maximise their profits,” says city manager Paul Aschenbrenner. ”That’s (their right), but at the same time they should take into account the social consequences.”
2,300 people worked at Nokia’s Bochum plant. Each worker received up to 125,000 euros in redundancy payments, and in addition Nokia has to pay two thirds of unemployed former Nokia workers for a period of up to one year. Around a third of the workers made redundant by Nokia remain unemployed.
”In Germany you can’t fire a couple of thousand people as easily as you might be able to in Finland,” says former shop steward Gisela Achenbach. ”Nokia was surprised by the opposition.”
Nokia’s reputation took a battering after the redundancies, but it looks like after a short break consumers are beginning to forgive the company.
”Some customers say that they will never buy Nokia,” says mobile phone salesman Veli Bayram. ”Most are satisfied with the product, though.”
Nokia’s payments in relation to the Bochum factory’s closure are not public information, but conservative estimates put the cost of repairing the company’s image at more than 200 million euros.
