Jan. 10, 2002 – Schaumburg, IL – Motorola Inc. is set to cut 1,200 to 1,300 chip manufacturing jobs in Austin, TX, and Japan. The job cuts, to take place over nine to 15 months, are among the 4,000 semiconductor job cuts previously announced, spokeswoman Gloria Shiu said in Hong Kong.

Previously, Motorola said it would cut 700 to 800 chip manufacturing positions in Hong Kong, reported Reuters.

Shiu said the company is also eliminating 2,000 sales and administrative jobs from its global chip operations, to bring the total semiconductor downsizing to 4,000.

“We just notified our employees in three other operations (beyond Hong Kong) that their manufacturing operations will also be transferred,” Shiu said.

In Sendai, Motorola will shutter the fabrication and final manufacturing operations at the TSC-8 line of its Tohoku Semiconductors Co. unit.

Motorola will close its Sendai final manufacturing operation, which has 230 staff, and an assembly and test unit in Texas, the company said. Motorola said it will retain its chip design operation in Sendai.

The company said wafer fabrication will be shifted to plants in Arizona and Scotland, as well as another Sendai facility. All the final assembly work will be moved to Motorola plants in Kuala Lumpur and Tianjin, China, Shiu told Reuters.