Lenovo lays off a ton of Motorola staff – report

Lenovo has reportedly laid off “hundreds of employees” working at Motorola, apparently leaving less than 50% of the workforce remaining.

One source told Droid-Life that over 700 employees out of 1200 will be laid off, while another claimed that Lenovo was moving more operations to China.

The Chinese tech firm confirmed the news in a press statement, saying it was part of “ongoing strategic integration” between the two.

Lenovo said the Motorola layoffs were part of plans to “streamline its portfolio” of products

“Lenovo today announced a resource action impacting less than 2% of its approximately 55 000 employees globally. The majority of the positions being eliminated are part of the ongoing strategic integration between Lenovo and its Motorola smartphone business as the company further aligns its organisation and streamlines its product portfolio to best compete in the global smartphone market,” the company explained.

The company insisted that it planned to keep Motorola’s Chicago headquarters however.

“Chicago has a well-deserved reputation for technical excellence and as the hub of our global R&D for our smartphone business we expect to take advantage of local talent to continue developing Moto products there.”

The move comes in the wake of the Moto Z family of smartphones being launched, beating Apple to dropping the headphone jack. The company also stood out at IFA after launching a Hasselblad camera add-on for the range.