Motorola Mobility Cutting 750 Jobs En Route To Merchandise Mart Move
By Chuck Sudo in News on Aug 13, 2012 6:00PM
A couple of weeks back Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in one of his “we’re proving Chicago is the City That Works” press releases, announced plans for Motorola Mobility to move its corporate headquarters to the Merchandise Mart. Emanuel praised the company as it “joins a growing group of industry-leading companies that see Chicago as a global leader of talent development and business growth, and the company will bring jobs and economic opportunity to our city.” Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside said the company was proud to call Illinois home and the Merchandise Mart was the perfect place to “continue our commitment to the state, honor our heritage, recruit top talent and usher in a new era of wireless innovation.”
Today Google, which bought Motorola Mobility last August, announced plans to lay off over 4,000 of the company’s employees, including 700-750 people in Chicago. If that happens it will place the tax breaks the Illinois Legislature agreed to give the company in May 2011 to keep the company in Illinois.
Motorola Mobility must maintain a workforce in Illinois of 2,500 employees in order to keep the tax incentives and announced plans to cut off 800 jobs last November. The announced layoffs would mean only 2,250 employees would transfer from Motorola’s Libertyville campus to the Merchandise Mart. Some suburban politicians are already angry at Google for moving Motorola to Chicago, which Woodside defended as wanting “more people in fewer places.” Quinn, who approved of the move to Chicago, may not be as amenable to the layoff announcement.