Fidelity to Lay Off 1,695 Employees --- Market Slump Is Blamed; Mutual-Fund Firm to Spare Money Managers, Analysts
BOSTON -- Fidelity Investments, its business taking a hit in the stock-market tumble, said it would lay off 1,695 employees, or 5% of its work force.</br></br>The nation's largest mutual-fund company said the job cuts would focus primarily on market-sensitive operations, such as its big online brokerage unit. But Fidelity said it wouldn't be dismissing any money managers or research analysts.</br></br>Fidelity's assets under management, now $776 billion, have fallen 22% since their peak of $1 trillion on Aug. 31, 2000, a drop that will slash the company's revenue and profit.</br></br>A Fidelity spokeswoman said the company's work force swelled "when the market roared in the '90s," and now the company needed "to adjust its resources" to reflect the sharp decline.</br></br>Overall, the company's employment will be down 12%, including attrition, after the latest job cuts from a peak of 33,369 in January 2001. In 2001, Fidelity announced layoffs of 1,114, or about 3% of its work force, mostly from its brokerage units, which had seen a sharp slowdown in trading. In the current round, about half the jobs eliminated will be in Boston, where the company is based, and suburban Marlborough, Mass.