Motorola to offload half its Birmingham staff
Job losses to stem money losses
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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 today, 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. ®
COMMENTS
Better than the States
I would consider the folks at Birmingham fairly fortunate still, with the 90 day "warning" you can really make the necessary life changes or at least be thoroughly prepared for it. It appears that similar actions are considered for the Plantation facility and others in the U.S. according to http://thelaidoff.com but probably they'll see the axe only when it's about to hit their neck instead.
On the other hand, one could argue everyone at Motorola can see this coming for about 1/2 ~ 1 year now so whether it's 90 day warning or 2 weeks warning, it's all fair games.. One thing we know for sure is not to believe in the management straight talk of no layoff :P They'll do what's needed to turn things around (or at least try to save their own behind)..
decimation x 6.577!!!
decimate 6.577 times =
0.9 ^ 6.577 = 0.50009554366664035927846079510926
=~50%
so there :P
mines the one with "loggarivems 4 preskoolerz" in the pocket
Hmmmmm... how times change
I may be misremembering, but wasn't it Motorola's handset people who led the trend for (a) "zero defect" and (b) "offshoring", way back in the 20th century (mid 1980s maybe) when their handset design and manufacturing went from the USA to the subcontinent?????
Doesn't look like it did them much good medium term then? Current promoters of offshoring and promoters of the natural heir of zero defect, "six sigma", please note... some people know what you're up to, and you're up to no good.
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