Massachusetts is disproportionally suffering from job cuts at Fidelity Investments, claims the Boston Globe. Fidelity has shed a net 9,500 jobs, 20 percent of its total, over the past two years. Roughly 4,000 of those jobs losses came in Massachusetts. Those cuts represent nearly 30 percent of Bay State jobs at Fidelity.

While Fidelity is slimmer than at the end of 2007, it is still hiring, suggesting that the Boston Behemoth is recreating itself while making itself smaller.

So far this year it has hired hired more than 1,000 people across a variety of posts, business units and locations.

At the end of 2007 Fidelity's global headcount was 46,500. That number now stands at 37,000. It employs 9,000 in Massachusetts compared to 13,000 in 2007.

The cuts have helped Fidelity to boost its bottom line even as its revenues have fallen through the recession. In 2009, its revenue fell 11 percent yet its net earnings rose five percent to $2.5 billion.

Chairman Ned Johnson alluded to the trade-off between jobs and earnings in his annual shareholder letter:

"It is always a difficult trade-off between building for the future versus cutting current expenses. The latter often translates into reductions in personnel and programs, some of which may be unproductive. Cutting fat is one thing; cutting muscle is quite another." 

Edited by: Sean Hanna, Editor in Chief


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