Motorola China Employees Protest Against Google, Fear At Least 1,000 Local Lay-Offs [PHOTOS]

The protest on Thursday outside of Motorola's R&D centre in Nanjing, eastern China.

About a hundred employees of Motorola China have protested outside of a company’s R&D facility in Nanjing, eastern China, decrying what they call the “illegal firing” of Motorola Mobility employees in the country. Google-owned (NASDAQ:GOOG) Motorola has reportedly informed local workers of the lay-offs, but has not gone public with the whole figure for its proposed China cuts. [UPDATED: There are protests today, Friday, in Beijing as well. See the photos below].

QQ Tech is suggesting that a quarter of Motorola’s worldwide lay-offs (of 4,000) will happen in China – so that could mean 1,000 jobs being lost in the country. But rival news site Sohu IT says that Motorola China employs 5,000 people, and that 30 percent of them will be fired. That’d amount to 1,500 local job cuts for the company. This looks set to affect R&D, marketing, and production plants in China too.

Yesterday, outside of the Motorola R&D centre in Nanjing – its biggest research facility in China, which we have confirmed is run by the Google-owned part of Motorola – workers held a sign (pictured above) that said on the top half:

Oppose Google’s illegal firing of employees.

That Nanjing base is home to 500 employees. Earlier rumors last week suggested that that whole R&D centre would shut, but Motorola declined to comment when we contacted them last Friday. We’ve talked to them again this morning, and a Beijing-based representative told us:

This is a global restructuring and China is affected. At the moment we’re not able share any more details than that.

Both Google and Motorola Mobility look to be facing a lot of anger in China, with the country perhaps taking the brunt of the worldwide restructuring of the struggling phone-maker.

[Sources: Sohu IT and QQ Tech – articles in Chinese]

[UPDATED: Here are protests in Beijing today, images courtesy of Weibo user @罗亮]: