Motorola to lay off 3,000 workers

Motorola announced that it was cutting its global workforce by 4.5%, or some 3,000 employees, and delaying the spinoff of its troubled cell phone unit.

Motorola, the largest US mobile phone manufacturer, announced the job cuts just hours after reporting a quarterly net loss of nearly $400m and said more than two-thirds of the layoffs would be in the handset division.

The ailing company had 66,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2007.

The largest US mobile phone manufacturer said in a statement that it suffered a net loss of $397m in the third quarter of the year after reporting a net profit of $60m the same time last year.

Motorola is planning cost savings of $800 million in 2009, with $600 million of that amount in mobile devices. In an earlier conference call with analysts, Jha outlined a plan for the mobile devices business that will involve reducing the number of software platforms used in handsets. Motorola is focusing on Google-developed Android, Windows Mobile and an in-house system called P2K.

If you like this post then consider sharing it with others.