Motorola To Reduce Workforce

Motorola To Reduce Workforce

Motorola has verified plans of laying off 3,000 workers by 2009 as part of its move to cut $800 million from its annual budget. More than two-thirds of employees set to be retrenched will come from the handset division.


Motorola has been struggling to turn its business around for the past couple of months due to an unprofitable handset department. Sanjay Jha, the company's co-CEO, noted that the employees from the division have done a "wonderful job in a limited sphere." However, Motorola needs to have designers who can develop phones with enhanced user interfaces and services to rival with iPhone and other new mobile units.



With the job cuts, Motorola aims to to gain back its shareholders' confidence and show them the company is gearing towards profitability. The mobile maker also announced it will be hiring more workers once significant improvement is seen.



Motorola is an American telecommunications company who manufactures wireless telephone handsets and designs and sells wireless network infrastructure equipment like cellular transmission base stations and signal amplifiers. It also builds home and broadcast network products such as set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and network equipment. The company's handset division accounted a loss of $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. In January 2008, Motorola sacked 3,500 workers, and another 4,000 in June.