More layoffs: From coffee retailers to mobile phone makers - Starbucks begins announced layoffs to cut costs, Nokia to ax 320 jobs...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Starbucks Corp. on Wednesday told about 1,370 employees that their jobs will be cut as the gourmet coffee company sheds costs by closing stores and laying off employees. About 500 non-store employees in the United States and Canada, including 300 in the company's Seattle headquarters, and 870 assistant store managers learned their jobs were disappearing, the company said. Starbucks said it is offering some of the affected employees other jobs. Those who leave Starbucks will be offered severance pay, benefits and help finding another job.

HELSINKI (AP) -- Nokia Corp. said Wednesday it will close a research center in Finland and ax up to 320 jobs in a move to save costs as the global economic downturn hit the mobile phone industry. It also announced temporary layoffs. Nokia will close the research and development center in Jyvaskyla, southern Finland by the year-end, the world's largest mobile phone maker said. All 320 people working there will be affected, it said. The Finnish company is also planning to temporarily lay off some 2,500 workers at a plant in Salo, on the southern coast, although production there will continue. It will concentrate its Finland-based mobile devices R&D operations in Tampere, Oulu, Salo and the metropolitan Helsinki area.