Fidelity Layoffs The Latest Cuts In Finance

Today, Fidelity Investments continues a layoff plan announced last year when the mutual fund giant said it would cut some 3,000 jobs starting with 1,300 in November and at least another 1,700 in the first quarter, according to the Boston Globe. Some of the latest cuts are reportedly in its FMR Co. unit, which includes managers and analysts who'd managed to avoid past layoffs.

With this latest round, Reuters adds up the total damage from job losses among banks, insurers and asset managers since the start of the credit crisis back in August 2007. So far: 306,000 job cuts have been announced worldwide, with the largest coming from massive U.S. investment banks like Citigroup (75,000 jobs cut), J.P. Morgan (16,900 cuts) and Bank of America (45,000 cuts). Most of the cuts came as surviving banks digested acquisitions of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros, Washington Mutual and others, so the head counts at the big banks are actually quite a bit higher now than at the start of the crisis (J.P. Morgan employed 224,961people at the end of 2008 after the WaMu deal, up from 179.664 in Aug. 2007.) That may not be good news as the realities of lower profits in the finance sector continue to sink in.

FIDO TO CUT 1,300 JOBS

Fidelity Investments said it will cut nearly 1,300 jobs this month, with more layoffs to come early next year, in response to declining markets that have eroded mutual-fund assets along with the fees Fidelity earns from its core business.

Layoff notices will go out to about 2.9 percent of Fidelity's overall work force of 44,400. The cuts will be spread across the company's far-flung US operations. No fund managers or analysts are being laid off, said Anne Crowley, a spokeswoman for Boston-based, privately held Fidelity.

Fidelity Investments says in third round of layoffs

BOSTON, June 5 (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments said on Thursday it has axed more non-investment management jobs this week, marking the third round of layoffs at the world's biggest mutual fund company in eight months under a new president.

"It was a very small percentage of our overall work force, which is nearly 46,000," Fidelity spokeswoman Anne Crowley said about the jobs cut, which were made on June 3.

Crowley declined to give the number of jobs cut but said they mostly occurred in two units -- a division that operates retirement savings plans and another that provides human resources services. The cuts were made in multiple locations, she said.

Privately owned Fidelity cut about 250 jobs in end-January and about 200 in November. Besides the main investment management business, which has been spared the cuts, it has brokerage, retirement service and benefits-administration operations.

President Rodger Lawson, who rejoined Fidelity in mid-2007, initiated a major reorganization of its business and is making costs a big focus. Crowley said the latest layoffs are a result of the reorganization.

But Fidelity is still hiring, she said.

"We have 4,000 more people than we had a year ago. We are continuing to hire and we have several hundred open requisitions throughout the company for which we are continuing to hire," Crowley said.

Boston-based Fidelity manages $1.5 trillion in assets. (Reporting by Muralikumar Anantharaman, editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Fidelity reportedly set to layoff as many as 200 workers

By Murray Coleman
Last Update: 9:25 AM ET Nov 1, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Fidelity Investments, the Boston-based mutual-funds giant, has told some of its managers to begin letting employees in specific divisions know of impending layoffs, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The report, citing analysts and people close to the firm, also said that information technology and retirement services could be impacted. A source also told the paper that as many as 200 people might be notified of layoffs on Thursday. A company spokeswoman declined to comment


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