Motorola and Freescale slash jobs

Motorola and its chip house spin-off Freescale have announced job cuts, joining a wave of State-side layoffs swollen by IBM and Dell earlier this week. 

Motorola is to cut 4,000 jobs by 2008 in an effort to save $600m a year. The savings will also come from pulling investment from marginal projects, a clampdown on discretionary spending and what it describes as "site rationalisation".

The company will take a $150m restructuring hit in its 2008 financial year as part of the cuts.

"We are confident that the steps we are announcing today, together with the actions that we have outlined previously, will further improve the company's financial and operational performance and create value for our stockholders," said Tom Meredith, Motorola's chief financial officer.

Motorola announced at the beginning of this year that 2,500 jobs would go by the end of June saving $400m a year.  

Freescale, which makes chips for Motorola phones among other devices, will slash up to 10 per cent of its 24,000 workforce.

The company was acquired by a private equity consortium late last year, but its first-quarter financials under the new owners, reported in April, showed a 12 per cent drop in revenue from the previous year.