Motorola Mobility to reduce staff by 4,000

@CNNMoneyTech August 13, 2012: 8:33 AM ET
Google's Motorola Mobility to cut workforce by one-fifth and close one-third of facilities in plans to save money.

Google's Motorola Mobility to cut workforce by one-fifth and close one-third of facilities in plans to save money.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Cellphone maker Motorola Mobility, which is owned by Google Inc., will reduce its staff by 4,000 jobs, or one-fifth of its total workforce.

Two-thirds of these job cuts will occur outside the U.S., Google said Monday in a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) also said Motorola Mobility will close or consolidate about one-third of its 90 facilities.

The company said the changes are aimed at returning Motorola Mobility to profitability after losing money in 14 of the past 16 quarters.

But Google warned investors that despite the money-saving cuts, Motorola will experience "significant revenue variability" in the next several quarters.

The company expects to pay a severance-related charge of $275 million.

Representatives of California-based Google, which competes with Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), did not immediately respond to a message from CNNMoney.

But a spokeswoman for Illinois-based Motorola Mobility, which competes with Apple (APPL), said that employees will be provided with "generous severance packages."

Google shares rose 1.5% in premarket trading. To top of page

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.