Lenovo lays off more than half of its remaining Motorola workforce (UPDATE)

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Update: Lenovo has officially announced the lay-off in a strategic shift to keep Moto competitive. Motorola has also reached out to us with an official press statement, which refutes suggestions that remaining staff would be moved away from the Motorola HQ in Chicago. You may find it at the bottom of this article.

Around this time last year, Lenovo laid off a large number of employees and it looks as though history may be repeating itself. According to sources of Droid-Life, around 700 of the 1200 or so staff within its Motorola Mobility division have either been told they'll soon be no longer employed, or will be notified as such over the next 24 hours. 

Apparently, Lenovo is ramping up its efforts to move operations over to its native China, which would naturally be a more cost-effective strategy. One particular employee reportedly mentioned on Facebook that after two decades of service to Motorola, this coming Friday will be his last. The source of Droid-Life's report also believes that employees managing to avoid the axe will be moved from Motorola's long-standing digs in Chicago over to Lenovo's United States HQ in North Carolina. 

The original, pre-2011 Motorola is dead as we knew it. The company was spun off into two entities: Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility. The latter, which is focused around the consumer-side mobile products, was snapped up by Google in 2011 before being passed on to Lenovo in 2014.

Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola Mobility has spawned a number of products such as the recent Moto Z series, which continues to champion Motorola's logo and archetypal design language. With only around 500 staff reportedly left in the US, however, Motorola is far removed from its former glories, and the future paints a rather bleak picture. 


source: Droid-Life, Verge

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