culture of innovation...ROTFLMAO
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State Street Corp. laid off about 250 information technology employees nationwide on Sept. 13, part of the company’s drive this year to cut 2,300 jobs in higher-cost locations in the U.S. and elsewhere. An untold number of jobs in Austin are among the cuts
The Boston-based financial services giant has been slashing expenses in the face of declining revenue this year. It initially announced in January that it planned to cut 1,500 jobs in 2019, including senior managers, then revised that target to 2,300 in July.
Some of the job cuts occurred in Boston, State Street spokesman Brendan Paul said, though he declined to provide a geographic breakdown. The company’s outpost in Austin was also affected, he confirmed.
“Today’s moves streamline our IT organization and removes unnecessary layers that get in the way of our overall success,” Paul said in a statement. “With these changes we will ensure our culture of innovation is more readily focused on delivering against our strategic objectives in the near and long term.”
At this point, State Street (NYSE: STT) has made more than 2,000 of its targeted 2,300 job cuts. The company is also in a hiring freeze, though it has carved out some exceptions to that policy.
The company has been shifting its headcount from U.S. and European cities to what it calls “global hubs” in the lower-cost countries of China, India and Poland. It has added over 5,000 more employees in the hubs over a two-year period.
At the beginning of the year, State Street employed more than 40,000 workers, according to a securities filing. As of July, that included 11,700 in Massachusetts, according to Boston Business Journal research.
Automation has played a role in this year’s cuts. The company has been working to automate custodial banking and other tasks for years, Chief Financial Officer Eric Aboaf said in July, but recently it’s started to “ensure the automation is consistently used … in a widespread way.
“Once you do that, you actually need fewer people in the mix, and you actually deliver better and higher-level services,” Aboaf said.