BEIJING--Motorola Mobility confirmed Friday that layoffs announced earlier this month would affect the company's China staff. The Motorola spokesman would not elaborate on the layoffs but said Beijing would remain one of the company's three global innovation hubs. Meanwhile, images of people protesting in front of Motorola's Beijing offices spread around Sina Corp.'s microblog, Weibo, on Friday. Chinese regulators in May cleared the $12.5 billion deal for Google Inc. (GOOG) to acquire Motorola. In early August, Google posted a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announcing that 4,000 of Motorola's 20,000 employees would be laid off globally. The filing said two-thirds of the layoffs would take place outside of the U.S., and that the company would "close or consolidate" one-third of its 90 facilities. Write to Paul Mozur at paul.mozur@dowjones.com Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
