Motorola Mobility will cut 800 jobs at a cost of US$27 million in severance costs, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The “workforce reduction action” will also see around US$4 million of costs related to "facility exit," meaning there will be a total of US$31 million net pre-tax charges to earnings for the final quarter of 2011.

The filing added that employees will be affected globally, with the company’s mobile devices and home business and “various corporate functions” impacted by the move. The severance payments will be made over the next 12 months.

The company’s recent quarterly results showed a US$32 million net loss on revenue of US$3.26 billion, despite mobile device sales increasing due to growth in international markets. The company shipped 11.6 million mobile devices, of which 4.8 million were smartphones. The figures for the same quarter in 2010 saw 9.1 million handsets shipped, with 3.8 million being smartphones. However, just 100,000 Xoom tablets were shipped during the most recent quarter.

During the period, the company launched a flagship smartphone which revived the RAZR name and started to selling its Droid Bionic LTE smartphone through Verizon Wireless.

Motorola Mobility is currently in the process of being acquired by Google in a US$12.5 billion deal first announced in August. The company stated in its results that there will be a special meeting of stockholders on 17 November to seek approval of the Google merger.