With a Microsoft partnership in the near future, employees of Nokia Oyj are preparing themselves for what could be huge job cuts of as many as 6,000 jobs, which would be 38 percent of Nokia’s research and development workers.  If these jobs end up getting cut, it would be the biggest cuts the company has faced in 20 years.  The announcement of the reduction in Nokia’s research and development employees will take place by the end of April.

On February 11, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said that over the next two years Nokia will be adopting Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 as the main operating system for its new smartphones.  According to Elop, this move will cause “substantial reductions in employment.”  He will phase out Nokia’s older smartphone operating systems, Symbian and MeeGo, and as a result, the research and development workforce will definitely be reduced substantially.

For the time being, Nokia is still releasing new smartphones that run on Symbian, and has other Symbian phones that will be coming up.  The transition for the company’s migration to the Windows Phone 7 will continue into 2012.