Motorola Solutions to move some manufacturing from Mexico to Schaumburg
While Motorola Solutions Wednesday reported increased sales, the maker of public safety equipment and tablets plans to bring back some manufacturing from Mexico to its Schaumburg headquarters.
The company will add about 150 jobs here by late March to make high-end, sophisticated radio devices for its public safety customers. The Mexican factory will remain open and continue to make other products, Motorola Solutions CEO Greg Brown said during a phone interview.
“They'll be housed in a factory in the heart of our campus,” Brown said. “It will be a mix of employees and contractors hired locally.”
Motorola Solutions, which continues to add and subtract from its workforce globally, recently completed “several hundred” buyouts as the company struggled during the third quarter as profit dipped, Brown said.
However, Wednesday's report showed fourth-quarter net earnings of $343 million with net sales at $2.5 billion, compared to $336 million in net earnings and $2.4 billion in net sales in the same period the year before.
The full year 2013 showed $1.09 billion in net earnings with flat $8.7 billion in net sales, compared to $881 million in net earnings with $8.7 billion in net sales during 2012.
Besides the recent round of buyouts, the company plans to continue to “surgically reduce” its workforce where needed while hiring in other areas, Brown said. He declined to provide specifics.
Also, the company's ongoing move to provide about 400 positions in its downtown Chicago office is nearly completed, he said. About
In addition, plans for Zurich North America to build a new headquarters on the Schaumburg campus is continuing, but there are no other plans to sell off any other portions of the campus even though one other building remains up for sale or lease for the last couple of years, Brown said.
“We're looking to build our corporate headquarters with more software and services and I believe our public safety business will continue to grown and expand. There are a lot of opportunities here in Illinois,” Brown said.