98 points

I believe these actions will make us stronger and deliver significant value for our shareholders

Yeah, fuck people, it’s all about the shareholders

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11 points

I thought that quote satire. Nope it’s real. JFC. 😩

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3 points

Are you trying to tell us you care for your ceo and you expect the same from him? Lmfao

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1 point

Legally, they aren’t even allowed to care.

They have a duty to maximize profits.

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0 points

What’s the alternative though, hire as many people as possible and fail?

If you are losing market share and profits then something needs to change, if you can cut costs of that. It’s a ridiculously big number and incredibly unfortunate but it’s unrealistic to think it’d be anything else

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63 points

That’s a drop in profit, right? Not an actual loss

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58 points

Yes, one quarter of decreased profits. Sales for the same quarter are only down 20%.

Another article says “The company still expects full-year net sales in a range between 23.2 billion euros and 24.6 billion euros, sticking to its forecast.”

I understand that it’s sometimes necessary for companies to trim the fat. But with annual net sales still on track and the company making healthy profits for many quarters running, it sure sucks for those 14,000 people that one bad quarter is being used as the reason that they’ll no longer be able to pay their bills.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/10/19/nokia-to-cut-up-to-14000-jobs-after-profit-plunges-.html

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29 points
Deleted by creator
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26 points

Yep, and it results in lower employee morale, reduced efficiency, higher turnover, and long-term project abandonment. You can’t trim the fat off a workhorse without slaughtering it.

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44 points

Remember, this isn’t because they’re at record losses, or that they’re breaking even.

It’s literally because they’re not making enough profit.

This is the freemarket system functioning as intended.

A company can still be making money, still be above water, but decide their shareholders need to be even better off and they will decide they deserve money more than people struggling and making it by barely check-to-check.

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8 points

Not quite. Ultimately it’s the shareholders making this decision. They twist arms on the board of directors, who in turn twists on the CEO. If the CEO doesn’t make a call like this, they simply fire him and find someone who will.

And it’s not necessarily that the shareholders want more money. But they sure as hell don’t want to lose money. And they are ATM.

NOKIA -6.44% NOK -5.16% ERIC.B -0.80%

Hell, I might be one of those shareholders. Maybe there’s a spot of Nokia stock in my Roth IRA, hell if I know. But the people managing my IRA know, and they’ll drop Nokia if it keeps losing value. And if Nokia keeps losing value, they won’t make payroll, those people are getting fired anyway.

If they were a private firm, there wouldn’t be any of this horse shit, but then they couldn’t raise capital to expand, take on a major initiative, etc. Sucks either way doesn’t it?

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2 points

Thank you!!

It’s the way the system is designed. That executive had no option but to maximize profits. Otherwise, the stock manager will sell their stock. And, the stock manager has no option but to pick the best stocks. Otherwise, investors would just go with a better performing financial product.

All these “shitty” business decisions made by executives are to increase stock value/dividends because their only goal is to do so. Any products or services a publicly-traded company provides is a side effect. To motivate this further, executives are often heavily paid in stock. Combining all these factors together, society ensures we place the greediest and most ruthless people in charge of our economic decisions.

That’s why I never care for news of a particular CEO. If they weren’t in that position, another asshole would gladly take their place since that CEO is surrounded by other relentless subordinates that want the position. Basically, our society encourages psychopaths to engage in their deranged egoism. It’s also why Trump doesn’t trigger me. He’s a victim of the system also, because he never faces the consequences he needs to experience in order to develop a healthy, complete, and stable personality. He will always feel deeply insecure, be delusional, and never know mental peace. Unfortunately, we’re the ones that have to suffer the consequences of his madness instead.

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-1 points

IIUC, profit doesn’t include obligations to investors.

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28 points
*

Possibly helpful graph to show what this actually means https://www.statista.com/statistics/275358/number-of-nokia-employees-since-2005/

I wish these news articles always included this information. For public companies, it’s a minute of googling.

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3 points

What happened in 2015/2016?

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8 points

They acquired Alcatel-Lucent, which had about 50k people at the time.

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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25 points

Still made a profit, but have to fire all you. Sorry, gotta keep Wall Street happy. Byeeeee

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18 points

This is the crux of the problem with public companies, and why they all do extremely stupid things.

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3 points

That’s how they made the profits

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