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Motorola Bringing 400 Workers To Chicago

UPDATED 06/14/11 8:18 p.m.

CHICAGO (CBS) -- In the latest announcement bringing more corporate jobs to the city, Motorola will be adding 400 workers in Chicago over the next 18 months.

Motorola Solutions, which employs about 5,000 people at its main headquarters in Schaumburg, will be adding workers focusing on customer support, sales and system integration efforts for public safety communications equipment. The kind of gear used by firefighters, police officers and other public safety workers. CBS 2's Jay Levine reports.

The announcement was made by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Motorola Solutions CEO Greg Brown.

"As people see us tackling the future with confidence dealing with our challenges, they are going to have confidence that this is a city on the move and one they want to make an investment in," the mayor said.

Some of positions will be relocations, and some of them will be new hires, according to the mayor's office. Motorola currently has office space in the Illinois Center, 233 N. Michigan. However, it remains unclear whether these additional jobs will be added to that space or another location in the city.


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Brown is the latest to be bitten by the Emanuel job bug, CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports. He said the mayor was relentless in getting his company to commit.

"Rahm is a pitbull around economic expansion and growth," Brown said.

This is the third major job announcement Mayor Emanuel has made since he took office in mid-May. GE Capital on May 23 announced it was adding 1,000 jobs, doubling its staff in Chicago. Last Friday, United Airlines announced it was bringing 1,300 positions to Chicago following its merger with Continental. Many of those jobs will be coming from other cities, including Houston and San Francisco.

Emanuel also took the jobs growth message to McCormick Place today for the opening of the National Cable and Telecommunications Trade Show.

"What you do, the decisions you make on investing and expanding the reach of broadband is essential to the economy I want build here in the city," he said.

Business experts say the strategy of trying to parlay the promised 2,700 jobs into some real job growth is a good one.

"The fact that people see big announcements by major U.S. and Chicago companies that they're creating jobs here is reality," said consultant John Challenger. "People see that and say something good must be going on.

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