Fidelity Investments to Downsize Printing Staff
Fidelity Investments, a leading mutual fund company with extensive in-house printing and mailing capabilities, plans to lay off about 400 employees in its Covington, Ky., operation, plus another 60 at its Grapevine, Texas, facility, according to The Boston Globe. The layoffs are expected to take place over the next 12 to 18 months.
Fidelity spokesman Perry Chlan told the Globe that the layoffs are due to the increasing use of the Internet to send information to investors.
"It wasn’t really a cost issue," Chlan commented to the newspaper. "It’s happening as a result of a significant decline in the volume of the printing and mailing of this material over the past few years."
Fidelity said that the printing of forms like account statements, trade confirmations and prospectuses, will be outsourced.
Four years ago, as reported in a 2012 IPG article, Fidelity consolidated four New England printing facilities into one all-digital operation in Boston, which produces most of the enterprise printing that supports Fidelity's business units, such as presentations, booklets, brochures, flyers, name tags, training manuals and posters. The consolidation saved more than $1 million in operating costs. This operation, Document Printing Services, will not be affected by the downsizing.