Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) CEO Stephen Elop has countered concerns that he's planning to relocate the handset giant as part of the Finnish firm's new strategy, but has warned that the vendor's home country will not be immune from significant jobs cuts that are coming down the line.

During a media question-and-answer session in London Friday morning, Elop said that "first and foremost, Nokia is a Finnish company."

So, no, for those who may have misheard, he did not say that Nokia is a finished company…

"Finland is our home and will remain our home," he continued.

But he added that the company needs to drastically reduce its operating expenses, and that there are "a range of ways" to deal with the current inefficiencies in the company's operating model.

He said one of those ways would be job cuts. Nokia is planning substantial redundancies in its global workforce, and jobs will be cut worldwide, including in Finland. The exact details are still being worked out, so Elop and his new management team have yet to provide any details.

At the end of 2010, Nokia employed 132,427 staff, of which 63,927 were Nokia Networks employees and 5,452 Navteq Corp. (NYSE: NVT) employees. That leaves 63,048 in the core Nokia devices business (including corporate roles).

Given that Nokia is set to work closely with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on device operating system development, marketing, and services, there will be a lot of people among those 63,048 wondering today if they have a future with their current employer.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading