Feeling the heat from an extremely sluggish economy, Motorola Inc. said
Friday that it plans to shed another 4,000 positions, this time affecting
workers at its recently formed Networks Sector division.
That division is made up of three businesses: Commercial, Government and
Industrial Solutions Sector (CGISS); Global Telecommunications Solutions Sector
(GTSS); and Broadband Communications Sector (BCS).
The impact at Motorola BCS, a major equipment supplier to cable operators,
will be felt to a much lesser degree when compared with the hits coming at CGISS
and GTSS.
Work-force reductions at Motorola BCS will be fewer than 1 percent of its
aggregate 11,000 workers, a company spokeswoman said. Math then suggests that
Motorola BCS plans to give pink slips to fewer than 110 employees.
Those workers will be eliminated by the end of the first quarter, the
spokeswoman said. Motorola said it expects to complete the Networks Sector
layoffs by the second quarter.
Since December, Motorola has announced reductions affecting 22,000 of its
global work force of 147,000.
Motorola said the latest move was necessary to reduce costs and to position
it for long-term growth, adding that it expects to record an unspecified charge
against first- and second-quarter earnings.
As for Motorola BCS, the unit is 'adjusting the level and direction of our
resources to correspond with the ebb and flow of our target markets,' the
spokeswoman said, noting that the company is expecting growth in 2001,
particularly in Europe.
'Unfortunately, reductions have been necessary for us to improve financial
performance, and this is something we will have to continually evaluate as we
monitor market and economic conditions,' Motorola Networks Sector president
Edward D. Breen said in a press release. Breen was the former chief of General
Instrument Corp. before its merger with Motorola.
