800 Motorola Mobility Employees Now More Mobile Than They’d Like

Motorola Mobility is trimming down for its impending acquisition by Google. In a regulatory filing, the company announced plans to sack 800 employees — nearly 5 percent of the company’s workforce. “Motorola Mobility continues to focus on improving its financial performance by taking actions to manage the company’s costs,” said company spokesperson Jennifer Weyrauch-Erickson said in a statement.

As a result, Motorola will take a net pre-tax charge to earnings of approximately $31 million. Of that, $27 million will be related to severance costs and $4 million to facility exit costs.

“Both of the Company’s business segments (the Mobile Devices business and the Home business), as well as various corporate functions, are impacted by the action and the action affects employees globally,” Motorola said the filing.

Motorola still expects the Google deal to close by late 2011 or early 2012, the same target date it set when the companies announced the acquisition in August.