Motorola Mobility to shed 4,000 jobs

Owner Google wields the axe, with the majority of job losses set to come from outside the US

Google is planning to chop around 4,000 jobs from Motorola Mobility as it looks to return the firm to profitability, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has revealed.

The search engine giant acquired Motorola Mobility last August for $12.5bn, in what was the firm's biggest acquisition to date.

According to the WSJ article, the cuts represent 20 per cent of the firm’s 20,000 workforce, with two-thirds of the reductions set to come from outside the US.

In a statement to the WSJ’s AllThingsD website, a Motorola representative said: “While Motorola expects this strategy to create new opportunities and help return its mobile devices unit to profitability, it understands how hard these changes will be for the employees concerned.

“Motorola is committed to helping them through this difficult transition and will be providing generous severance packages, as well as outplacement services to help people find new jobs,”the statement concluded.

Google is also planning to close about a third of Motorola’s 94 facilities, but will keep hubs in California, Chicago and Beijing, the WSJ article added.

These latest cuts follow a bout of management reshuffling, which saw the incumbent chief executive Sanjay Jha leave in May this year when the acquisition closed, along with a number of top executives.