Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of mobile phones, Tuesday announced a range of new job-cutting measures to reduce costs and adapt to weak market conditions.

The measures include voluntary buyout packages for 1,000 workers, as well as wider use of short-term unpaid leaves and sabbaticals. Finland-based Nokia employs almost 130,000 workers world-wide.

Also Tuesday, telecommunications operator Vodafone PLC said it was cutting 500 jobs in the U.K. as part of a GBP 1 billion ($1.45 billion) cost-reduction program announced in November.

Vodafone said the job cuts would come from all levels of the business, with about 170 of those jobs at its headquarters in Newbury, England.

Nokia said its voluntary buyouts will be available for employees March 1 to May 31 or until the target has been reached. The terms of the plans are subject to local labor practices and legislation.

Nokia earlier this month said it will close a research-and-development site and temporarily lay off workers in Finland because of the weakening handset market.

The moves by Nokia and Vodafone to reduce their work forces comes as network operators and rival equipment manufacturers make similar cuts.

Motorola Inc. last month said it would cut 4,000 jobs, or about 6% of its work force, on top of 3,000 cuts announced in the autumn.

Sweden's Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson in January said it will cut 5,000 jobs from a total of more than 78,000 workers. Of that number, 1,000 will be in Sweden, where it employs more than 20,000 people.

Nokia said last month that it aimed to cut operating expenses in its key devices and services business by more than 700 million euros by the end of 2010, with the majority of the cuts coming in 2009.

'Nokia continues to seek savings in operational expenses, looking at all areas and activities across the company,' it said Tuesday.

Gustav Sandstrom