Google Firing 4,000 Motorola Mobility Workers Following Acquisition

Google is axing one-fifth of the Motorola Mobility workforce following the search giants recent $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola’s mobile arm.

According to CNET two-thirds of the 4,000 fired workers will be from outside the United States, while Google will actively work to shut down one-third of Motorola Mobility’s offices around the world.

In an SEC regarding the decision, Google said it hopes the move will bring about a “return to profitability.”

Google says in the filing that Motorola “will be providing generous severance packages, as well as outplacement services to help people find new jobs.”

The generous severance packages Google plans to offer are expected to be worth upwards of $275 million. If the severance package money being provided by Google was divided into equal payments each employee would receive $68,750. In the meantime I would guess that fired executives and top paid employees will likely take home the bulk of the severance package.

The company, according to the New York Times, will now focus its major efforts on Chicago; Sunnyvale, California; and Beijing. The company also plans to largely exit the feature phones market and instead focus on higher-end smartphone devices that offer days-long battery life and the ability to identify people in a room based on their voice. The strategy to focus on high-end users has been a big step forward for other manufacturers including Apple and, most recently, Samsung.

Motorola plans to offer only a handful of devices each year with an emphasis of course on the Google Android mobile operating system. The company faces an uphill battle in which Samsung has become synonymous with the Google Android OS and Apple continues to attract an increasing number of phone and PC users who prefer to have all of their major computing devices supported under one roof.