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Motorola to offload half its Birmingham staff
Wednesday, March 19 2008
by Sheila M. Averbuch


Motorola is poised to axe half the staff at its design
facility in Birmingham, as the mobile company tries to turn
around its beleaguered mobile devices division.

All the 121 staff at the facility were told Tuesday they are
"at risk of redundancy". Motorola is proposing to make
half of them redundant and said it may close the site.



Motorola's loss-making mobile devices division has been in
turmoil recently and its revenues have been tumbling. Two
executives from the division, including the head of mobile
devices for EMEA, departed over the weekend, following the
exit of the company's head of mobile last week.



The division's fourth quarter sales - its latest results -
were down 38 per cent compared with a year earlier.



In a statement released on Wednesday, Motorola said: "Since
the beginning of 2007 Motorola has been public about its
commitment to returning the company's Mobile Devices business
to its market-leading position by improving profitability,
driving product portfolio enhancements and rationalising
costs.



"As a result it is proposed that the Birmingham site will
need to reduce headcount by approximately 50 per cent which
may potentially require the closure of the site.



"Therefore, all employees will initially be placed at 'risk
of redundancy' whilst alternative opportunities including
redeployment, relocation, flexible working/home working or
the opportunity of a 'service site' arrangement are
investigated as part of the consultation process."



The company said it would consult employees on the proposed
redundancies over the next 90 days. The cuts would likely
follow soon after.



The Birmingham facility is a Design Centre, so most of the
job losses will be among technical staff.



A company spokesperson said cagily that Motorola would not be
invoking job losses at the company's other UK sites.



Facilities in Basingstoke, Cambridge and Livingston are also
part of the mobile devices division. The spokesperson said:
"The announcement made today is related to Birmingham."



When pressed on whether it would affect the other sites, she
said: "So far the answer would be no."



Motorola has this year already laid off 155 people at
Cambridgeshire-based TTPCom, a business which it acquired two
years ago.



The Register
and its contents are copyright 2008 Situation Publishing.
Reprinted with permission.