Motorola fears for 400 jobs in SwindonChris DruceMotorola may cut as many as 400 Swindon-based jobs due to the continuing weakness of the telecoms infrastructure market.
The company has entered into a consultation period with employees at its Groundwell West and Euroway sites to decide the best course of action. The sites employ just under 1,400 people between them.
Collectively the sites function as Motorola’s
UK centre for infrastructure, manufacturing basestations for the European, African and Asian markets, a fact that the company has said will guarantee their longterm future.
Activities at the centre cover the full spectrum of the company’s infrastructure business including R&D, engineering, marketing and sales, addressing existing GSM technology and the forthcoming third generation (3G) technology.
“Demand for basestations remains soft across
the board,” said Patrick Hamilton, director of communications for the UK and Ireland. “We expect an upturn but not until 2004, so there is still a significant period of toughness to endure before this.”
The cuts are part of 7,000 global job losses announced this month. Just last week the company announced its largest ever quarterly loss of $2.3bn (£1.5bn).
Motorola said no other UK job losses are expected at present.