Motorola Cuts 4,000 More Jobs as Phone Sales Slump

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — Motorola Inc., the second-biggest U.S. seller of mobile phones, is cutting 4,000 more jobs as the economic slump erodes consumer spending.

About 3,000 of the job cuts will come from its mobile devices unit, Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola said today in a statement. The reduction follows 3,000 job cuts disclosed in October as declines in the handset business leached profitability.

Co-Chief Executive Officers Greg Brown and Sanjay Jha froze U.S. pension plans and cut executive pay to lower costs as the recession slams phone demand. Global mobile-phone sales will fall 13 percent this year, the first drop since 2001, Citigroup Inc. said last month. Jha has said he’ll use Google Inc.’s Android software to create devices to challenge Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., which took the market lead in the third quarter.

Motorola rose 4 cents in extended trading to $4.15 after dropping 21 cents to $4.11 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares slid 72 percent last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lisa Wolfson in San Francisco at [email protected]

Last Updated: January 14, 2009 16:59 EST
By Lisa Wolfson

Source: Bloomberg

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