Huawei U.S. to lay off several R&D jobs, Huawei Canada continues to grow

Huawei is planning to make extensive layoffs in its U.S. branch, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According to anonymous sources familiar with the matter, WSJ reported that the layoffs will specifically be from its research and development subsidiary called Futurewei Technologies.

There are currently about 850 people in these labs across the U.S. In total, there are 1,500 employees in the U.S. and these employees mainly handle equipment sales to rural wireless carriers.

Huawei did not comment on the report, but WSJ said that several employees have already been laid off.

This news comes a few days after U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said U.S. companies will be issued licences if they intend to do business with Huawei “where there is no threat to national security.” That decision came a following U.S. President Donald Trump banned Huawei from doing any business in the U.S.

In February, the Canadian division of the Chinese company added 200 R&D jobs. There are more than 1,100 employees and over 600 of those are dedicated to R&D.

Huawei Canada said that no layoffs are planned anytime in the future.

Chris Pereira said that the division has recently completed the hiring of the 200 staff in Canada and said that the company plans to “continue hiring additional staff into the second half of the year.”

“In addition, our founder Mr. Ren has recently announced plans to invest billions of U.S. dollars into Canada and open multiple new R&D centres, which will entail significant new hiring for well-paying jobs in places like Ottawa and Montreal,” he said.

Source: Wall Street Journal