60 per cent Bangalore staff affected by Motorola layoffs?

A day after Google decided to slash 20 per cent of all Motorola Mobility jobs worldwide, there were reports that nearly 60 per cent of the employees in Bangalore had already been given marching orders.

Repeated attempts to contact Motorola for confirmation of the reports were in vain. Employees who spoke to Express said that a large number of their colleagues had already been asked to leave though they were unable to provide the exact number of employees affected. Employees said Motorola Mobility employed close to 300 people mostly working on cell phones, cellular domains, hardware and software as well as cell phone integration in Bangalore.

After the decision, news agencies quoted a Google spokesperson stating that the layoffs were an attempt to bring back the unit into “profitability”.

International news agencies also reported that Motorola Mobility, had decided to close down 1/3rd of their total 94 offices worldwide with nearly 4,000 jobs to be cut outside the US.

Employees said chances of the Bangalore unit shutting down were bleak as many had not received relieving orders. “Employees have been given two weeks’ notice and would be given one month salary for every year served in the company as severance pay,” sources said. They added that their ID cards would stop working on the 15th day. They said employees with experience ranging from entry-level engineers to senior-level had been affected. The office in Bangalore’s Bagmane Tech Park wore a deserted look.

The company, which has seen consistent retrenchment in the last few years, sold its network devices to Nokia Siemens Network in 2010 for $1.2 billion. Later, the mobile devices unit was taken over by Google for $12.5 billion as the cell phone major had over 17,000 patents to help defend against challenges in the Android operating system space.