Chinese tech giant Huawei will reportedly lay off hundreds of employees at its US-based research and development arm Futurewei, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Some members of Futurewei’s staff have already received their termination notices.
More than a month after Huawei was added to the US Department of Commerce’s Entity List, effectively cutting off the company’s access from US suppliers, Reuters found that Futurewei had banned its employees from using Huawei’s brand and logo, and moved them to a new IT system, in order to separate its operations from the Chinese telecommunications equipment provider.
In all, Futurewei has 850 researchers in the states of Texas, California, and Washington. According to sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, some were offered the option of relocating to China’s offices. Huawei employs about 1,500 personnel in the US.
The US government blacklisted Huawei because of concerns that the company may be a threat to national security. As a result of the trade ban, Huawei was not allowed to buy critical components and software that it needs for its products. In late June, US President Donald J. Trump agreed to ease the restrictions on the company and allow it to resume purchases from some US suppliers, though Huawei’s chairman said last Friday that the company hasn’t “seen any tangible change” after Trump made the promise.