Motorola factory expected to have large economic impact on Fort Worth

By Sheryl Jean

Motorola Mobility has set an ambitious schedule for its new smartphone factory in Fort Worth: Hire 2,000 workers and start production by the end of summer.

The company on Wednesday said it’s moving into the old Nokia plant at Alliance to make its new Moto X phones.

Hiring 2,000 people by the end of August was “one of the biggest risks,” Mark Randall, senior vice president of operations and supply chain for Motorola Mobility, said Thursday. “Can we get the skills?”

That was partly why Motorola and Flextronics, its Singapore-based partner that’s operating the factory, chose Fort Worth over other parts of the country, he said....

Generally, each electronics manufacturing job has a multiplier effect of 1.5 to two times on regional economic impact, affecting things such as spending on housing, shopping and related job creation, said Bernard Weinstein, an economist at Southern Methodist University....