Will affect 10% of work force: BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. is cutting 2,000 jobs as part of a cost-savings plan announced last month and is shuffling some senior executives. The job cuts amount to about 10% of the company’s work force. The company says it will notify affected employees this week. It expects to give more information on the layoffs when it reports fiscal second-quarter results on Sept. 15. Its U.S. shares fell 41 cents, or 1.5%, to $27.50 in pre-market trading. Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM has been hurt by product delays and by competition from Apple’s iPhone and smartphones that run Google’s Android operating system. Although its Blackberrys have dominated the corporate smartphone market, RIM has not been able to translate this success to the broader consumer market, where the iPhone and Android phones reign. The launch of its PlayBook tablet computer, meanwhile, wasn’t as successful as the company had hoped.
Clears way for $20 billion plant: Dow Chemical Co. and the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. outlined plans today to set up a joint venture to begin building a massive $20 billion chemical complex in the desert kingdom. The decision by both companies’ boards to create the new venture, dubbed the Sadara Chemical Co., formalizes a project that has been in the works since 2007. It promises to create one of the world’s largest integrated chemical facilities and the biggest ever built in one go. The complex will be located in Jubail Industrial City, which sits about 60 miles northwest of the eastern Saudi city of Dammam. It will include 26 manufacturing units producing chemical products and plastics for use in the energy, transportation, infrastructure and consumer products industries. The companies aim to begin production by the second half of 2015 and have Sadara finished the following year.
