MOTOROLA today announced 9,400 job losses worldwide, casting more doubt on the future of the company in Swindon.

Workers at its sites in Groundwell and Blagrove were being informed about the cuts at special hearings.

They were expected to be told that the redundancies will affect Swindon, where 2,000 people work at four sites.

Motorola announced massive redundancies at all levels worldwide earlier this year, including around 800 in Swindon.

The company says today's figure includes 4,000 already announced, and 4,000 due to early closures of semiconductor plants in the US. The remaining 1,300 are mostly in equipment manufacturing businesses, broadband TV equipment, two-way radio systems, mobile phones and cellular network infrastructure, which could affect Swindon.

It is understood that the Swindon operations may escape the worst of the cuts although the company declined to confirm this.

Motorola has already announced the closure of two of the town's four sites, in Blagrove and Kembrey Park. Only two buildings, the manufacturing plant at Groundwell and an administration office at Euroway, Blagrove, will operate after the New Year.

Spokesman Mark Durrant said today: "The closure of two of our four sites in Swindon is not an ending of manufacturing at Swindon but a consolidation of staff into less space to increase efficiency.

"We have an ongoing commitment to Swindon being at the heart of our manufacturing of cellular network infrastructure.

"The versatility of the Groundwell site, the largest single span factory in Europe, means we are able to turn much of it into offices for staff being moved from other sites, without disturbing assembly work carried out there.

"What is important is that the job losses we have regrettably been obliged to make will mean that we should return to profit next year."

In a statement from its Illinois headquarters, Motorola said it still expected fourth-quarter sales for ongoing operations to be up by up to three per cent when the figures are announced on January 22.

Motorola lost £963 million in the third quarter, the company's third successive quarterly loss. This included a fall in sales from £6.52 billion last year to £5.08 billion in the three months to September 30.

The year started with 147,000 people on Motorola's payroll, but when all the cuts are taken into account, this will drop by about 50,000.

The cuts included 3,000 redundancies after it closed its chip-making operations at its Bathgate plant in West Lothian, Scotland, this summer, with other cuts in Swindon and at its operations in Basingstoke, Hampshire, and East Kilbride, Scotland.

Staff at the company's Euroway office today said they had not been told about the latest job losses. They refused to comment further.