Bad news came from Huawei who had to do mass lay-off. (Image: TechCrunch)

Huawei fires 600+ employees in the U.S

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Electronic Device
Jul 24, 2019
1538
Amid the trade war between the U.S and China, it is true that in the part of it, some Americans also bear the consequence. Starting May, President of the United States, Donald Trump, included Chinese tech giant, Huawei with its 68 tech subsidiaries, in the “Entity List”. In other words, licenses are required if the U.S companies want to trade with Huawei.

The G20 sideline’s meeting between Trump and President of China, Xi Jinping, in Osaka, Japan, once brought hope to both Huawei and the U.S company, stating that Huawei could come back in business with the U.S companies as long as their trading would not impose any national threat.

The condition worsened when the Washington Post, quoting an anonymous source and internal documents, reported last week that for 8 years, Huawei had been helping North Korea (N. Korea) in developing its wireless communication through the Chinese state-owned firm Panda International Information Technology. If Huawei is proven guilty, it will violate the U.S export control over N. Korea.

Since the trade tension between the U.S and China is not seeing any settlement, Huawei decided to adjust to the harsh condition. On Tuesday (23/7), Huawei said that it would lay off its employees in the U.S due to the “blacklisting” of Huawei and its 68 tech subsidiaries. It was estimated that more than 600 employees lost their jobs.

Quoting the e-mail from Huawei, the work termination is coming to the China-flagged, U.S-based R&D facility, Futurewei Technologies, located in Texas. Futurewei Technologies employs about 850 people at its company, making it more than 50% lay-offs. The list had been sent from Huawei’s headquarter in China. Attached to the work termination, Huawei also aborted open source projects, near-term projects, and any development project with Futurewei.

One of the employees of Futurewei confirmed that the lay-off had started since Monday (22/7). Huawei itself refused to give any comment regarding the mass work termination.

Futurewei Technologies had been working closely with American universities and researchers. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, in its development, the tech subsidiary had filed about 2,100 patents for telecommunication networks and one of which was 5G networks.

However, since the ban, both Futurewei Technologies and Huawei were confused about what to do next. Huawei ordered Futurewei’s employees to upload anything that they could to Huawei’s cloud storage before the ban ran into force. Since the ban, Futurewei stands motionless.

Source: https://japantoday.com/category/tech/huawei-unit-cuts-more-than-600-jobs-following-us-sanctions

Business , Industry , Telecommunication , Internet , Network , China , U.S , Trade-War , Huawei , Futurewei-Technologies , Donald-Trump , Xi-Jinping