Mobile infrastructure vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)  confirmed Wednesday that it is cutting 4,100 jobs in Germany and Finland. The move is part of the company’s plans to reduce its headcount by 17,000 – almost a quarter of its 74,000 global workforce – by the end of 2013.

The company will axe 2,900 roles in Germany and 1,200 in Finland, as the firm plans to reduce operating expenses and production overheads by €1bn by the end of 2013, compared with the end of 2011, as it announced in November last year.

“We started communicating with employees in certain countries yesterday about the impact of the cost reductions that we announced on November 23,” a spokesperson told Telecoms.com.

“This is the beginning of the consultation process with employee representatives, where we share what we are proposing in terms of headcount reduction.”

The vendor has also recently sold its broadband access unit to US firm Adtran, its WiMAX unit to infrastructure player NewNet Communication Technologies and its microwave business to DragonWave.

Those deals also saw NSN reduce its headcount further to the 17,000 that had already been announced. The Adtran deal sees 400 of NSN’s staff transfer to the US firm, while 300 of NSN’s staff will move to NewNet and 360 employees are transferring to DragonWave.

The company added that it employs people in over 100 countries and will not provide a “running commentary” of further job cuts that form part of the 17,000 reduction, but will tackle headcount reductions on a country-by-country basis. The spokesperson said that the firm aims to have the “vast majority” of job cuts made by the end of 2012.