BOSTON — Fidelity is set to slash roughly 1,000 jobs from its global workforce, even as the company looks to upgrade its technology and product delivery teams and mandates its Boston-based employees return to the office full-time.
Amid rampant social media speculation, a spokesperson for the investment company has said that Fidelity is actually growing and that the changes to its technology and product operating model are not about cutting costs.
About 25,000 roles are transitioning to the so-called “evolved Technology and Product Operating model.”
“As part of this transition, we made the difficult decision to eliminate the roles of roughly 1% of our workforce,” the spokesperson said in a statement shared with the Boston Herald on Thursday. “At the same time, however, we are planning to hire nearly twice as many software engineers, in addition to the thousands of open roles we are actively recruiting for today.”
Fidelity has a global workforce of 80,000 employees. It was not clear Thursday evening how many of the company’s 800 to 1,000 layoffs are targeted in the city.
The company is offering severance, health care benefits and career transition services to those affected.
To support the new operating model, Fidelity has over 2,000 open roles, including 400 in tech- or product-related roles. The company is looking to hire 1,300 additional employees in these roles by the end of the year.
Hands-on engineers are a target of the openings, with Fidelity looking to hire nearly 2,000 new early-career, hands-on roles.
“These changes are about getting the right combination of skills in place for where Fidelity and its customers need them most,” the spokesperson said. “This means creating more room for early career, hands-on engineering roles and streamlining management layers.”
The transition has already begun, and starting June 1, all technology and product roles will be operating in the “evolved model” to help Fidelity accelerate development of products and capabilities, such as a new web experience for active, self-directed investors and traders.
“Fidelity is continuously improving its working model to best position ourselves to meet the evolving needs of customers,” the spokesperson said.
This comes after Fidelity announced last week that it is bringing its Boston workforce back to the office full-time in September, two years after the company required employees to be in-person for two weeks out of every four.
The company also looks to keep its main corporate office on Summer Street as it transitions workers to a Commonwealth Pier campus in the Seaport
“Fidelity’s belief is that being physically together creates more opportunities for a meaningful associate experience filled with connection, mentorship, and learning — elements that are central to our long-term success,” the company said in a statement last week.