In a move that is part of Sony Ericsson’s April-announced plan to cut its 10,000-employes-strong global workforce by 20 percent, the mobile handset maker Wednesday said that it intends shifting its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta, and close nearly eight sites worldwide to eliminate around 1,600 jobs.

The cut back by Sony Ericsson – a joint venture between the Japanese Sony and Swedish LM Ericsson – comes largely in expectation of a tighter market in the near future. The news about the closure of the company’s operations at Research Triangle Park was broken to the local employees at a companywide meeting at the Embassy Suites hotel in Cary.

The Sony Ericsson spokeswoman Stacy Doster said that other than the Research Triangle Park site, the other sites that face closure as a result of the company’s consolidation of global operations include those at Seattle; Miami; San Diego; Kista, Sweden; and Chennai, India.

About the shifting of Sony Ericsson’s North America headquarters, which will eliminate 425 high-paying workers, the Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said that the move will “be another boost to our state's economy.”

Meanwhile, terming the decision as a purely financial move which came after near-negligible discussions with the state leaders, North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said: “It's just a case of a company in the private sector doing something else to trim its bottom line.”