Motorola confirmed yesterday that it is to close its mobile phone factory in Bathgate in Scotland with the loss of more than 3,000 jobs.
Workers at the West Lothian plant, the biggest manufacturing facility in Scotland, were told the news at company meetings yesterday morning.
The closure, which has been blamed on trading losses and overcapacity in the mobile handset market, will be phased over four to six months and comes despite high-profile political intervention. The company last night agreed to pay back some £17m in grants it had received in recent years.
On the same day, JDS Uniphase, the manufacturer of fibre-optic equipment, said it would cut 5,000 jobs, 20% of its workforce, to cut costs because of falling demand.
Lucent, the telecom equipment manufacturer, announced a second-quarter loss of $3.7bn yesterday after spending $2.7bn on restructuring charges and suffering a sharp slowdown in demand.
Tony Blair, who had spoken to Motorola management in an effort to save the plant, said the news was a "bitter blow".
Foreign secretary Robin Cook said Motorola had created a "human tragedy" and he was bitterly disappointed that the firm did not listen to the case for keeping Bathgate open.
The chancellor, Gordon Brown, promised "direct and immediate" government support to find jobs for those affected.
Ministers at Westminster and Holyrood had hoped to persuade the company to retain the Bathgate facility after last month's announcement that 7,000 jobs would be cut from the global workforce. However, a decision was taken at the weekend to retain the company's plant in Flensburg, Germany, and close Bathgate.
Danny Carrigan, Scottish regional secretary of the AEEU engineering union, said: "Motorola has given the workforce and the community a kick in the teeth. The whole Bathgate community depends on that plant and the area will now be destroyed. We've worked hard to prevent this decision but Motorola has pulled the rug from under our feet."
Motorola said it had come to the decision after long and complex deliberations. "As you would expect, Motorola is committed to providing a full range of support services to its employees throughout the coming weeks as it continues to discuss the proposal with the elected employee consultation forum."
The shadow trade and industry secretary, David Heathcote-Amory, said: "High-profile political intervention has come to nothing and has failed to save a single job. The job losses at Motorola come on top of 350,000 already lost during a period of manufacturing decline since the last general election. The government has persistently ignored the problems of the manufacturing industry and has piled on extra regulations and taxes."
The Scottish enterprise minister, Wendy Alexander, said she had instructed officials to recover £16.75m in regional assistance paid to the Bathgate plant over the past six years.
Jozef Straus, chief executive of Canada's JDS Uniphase, said the outlook was too murky to predict an upturn later this year. Yesterday's restructuring "reflects the current situation in the market."
Other companies to issue poor results yesterday included Agere Systems, the semiconductor business recently spun off from Lucent, and AT&T, Lucent's largest customer.
