Motorola Inc. confirmed rumors reported earlier this week and announced Friday it will lay off as many as 4,000 employees from its semiconductor division. The effects of the layoffs on development or manufacturing of the G4 processor used in Macintosh computers is not immediately known.
“While job reductions are extremely painful, they are a necessary part of our cost-reduction needs,” Fred Shlapak, president of the Motorola semiconductor products sector, said in a prepared statement. “Each of our business units and support organizations has reviewed its circumstances and is making the necessary adjustments to help the sector meet its goals. At the same time, we are continuing to invest in R&D and build on our strengths to provide embedded solutions for the person, work team, home and auto.”
Shlapak said some of the job cuts will take place by the end of March while others will occur later in the year through a combination of attrition and layoffs aimed at helping to boost efficiency and improving profitability. Other measures will include a substantial reduction in capital spending and operating budgets and further business and manufacturing consolidations, the company’s semiconductor unit said.
A Motorola press spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the affect the cuts will have on the Power PC processor Motorola develops and manufacturers and is primarily used in Apple’s Macintosh systems.
Earlier this week, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Motorola was likely to make more job cuts. No specific locations for the current round of job cuts were announced.
The latest announcement of job cuts comes just weeks after Motorola said it would close its cellular manufacturing plant in Illinois and lay off 2,500 workers, as well as 2,870 jobs cuts in Florida and Ireland in various other divisions of the company. Roughly 7 percent of its total work force has been laid-off in these latest round of layoffs.
Motorola is the world’s second-largest supplier of mobile phones and a leading semiconductor maker. Both those divisions have been suffering through a softening U.S. economy and a bloated inventory of semiconductor chips in most markets, except for the G4 processor. Motorola revised its outlook for 2001 semiconductor growth based on current demand to between 10 percent and 15 percent. Earlier projections were for growth of between 35 percent and 40 percent.