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Motorola planning to lay off another 2,500 employees

Beleaguered cellphone maker Motorola Inc said it is laying off another 2,600 workers, bringing the company’s total employee cuts to more than 10,000 since last year.

Motorola will take a pretax charge of about US$104 million in the first quarter for severance costs from the new layoffs, the company said in a filing on Thursday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Schaumburg, Illinois-based company said US$113 million in severance charges will be partly offset by US$9 million in reversals for accruals from prior periods that are no longer needed.

Last week, Motorola bowed to pressure from investors and announced that it would split off its troubled cellphone business and form two separate, public companies.

In January last year, Motorola said it would eliminate 3,500 jobs as part of a two-year cost-cutting plan to save US$400 million.

The company announced cuts of another 4,000 jobs last May with hopes of improving its sagging financial and operational results.

The world’s No. 2 handset maker has eliminated more than 10 percent of its work force since the start of last year, when it became clear that two years of strong momentum behind the firm’s popular Razr phone had collapsed.

Motorola’s shares slid US$0.12 to US$9.65 in after-hours electronic trading on Thursday.

The stock had closed up US$0.16 at US$9.77 in the regular session.

The company is expected to release its full first-quarter financial results on April 24.
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