Google to lay off thousands

About 4,000 employees at Motorola Mobility are to lose their jobs, according to an announcement by Internet giant Google on Monday. Google purchased the cell phone maker in May of this year.

"While we expect this strategy to create new opportunities and help return Motorola's mobile devices unit to profitability, we understand how hard these changes will be for the employees concerned," Google told The New York Times.

"Motorola is committed to helping them through this difficult transition and will be providing generous severance packages as well as outplacement services to help people find new jobs," the firm added.

Reorganization will include laying off 20 percent of the current staff and closing a third of Motorola's offices worldwide, Google said. The company expects two-thirds of the layoffs to affect positions outside of the United States.

Chasing Apple

Google said it wanted Motorola to leave unprofitable markets altogether, stop making low-end devices and considerably reduce the number of cell phone models it produced.

Motorola Chief Executive Dennis Woodside promised to make his company's mobile phones "cool" again by fitting them with voice recognition software, better cameras and batteries.

Google's acquisition of Motorola earlier in the year put the Internet giant in head-to-head competition with Apple. With the purchase, it secured 17,000 patents which it viewed as being essential in fighting for dominance in the booming smartphone and tablet market.

hg/kms (AFP, dapd, dpa)