Nokia owner Microsoft closes Hungarian facility

As part of a streamlining effort following its buyout of cell-phone maker Nokia, Microsoft announced on Thursday that it was closing the Nokia plant in Komarom, northwest Hungary, local wire service MTI reported.

MTI cited factory council chair Zoltan Laszlo, who said management had reported the closure on Thursday afternoon.

The Komarom facility is just one of the many that Microsoft is shutting down. The report said that the software goliath will be dismissing 18 thousand workers worldwide over the next year.

The Hungarian government announced an action plan as soon as the closure was made public. Foreign Ministry State Secretary Peter Szijjarto said one part of the plan called for speeding up negotiations with international businesses interested in establishing operations in Komarom, a popular industrial district located on the Slovak border about halfway between Budapest and Vienna.

Another was to urge Microsoft to accelerate its project for a research and development center in Hungary that would offer jobs to 150 highly qualified science professionals.

Szijjarto also said an employment office outreach would be set up within the doomed factory. The employment office will be charged with pinpointing all available regional jobs and matching them up with newly redundant workers. The government is ready to help retrain people for the available jobs.

The city of Komarom is also pitching in. It recently built an industrial park to entice businesses, and it plans to continue efforts to attract new employers to the town.

The Nokia cell phone factory had been operating in Hungary since 2000, and Nokia was one of the largest companies in the country until a major downsizing in 2012 cut the Komarom workforce by 2,050 blue collar workers and 250 professionals.