Fidelity office closure may not sting so much
Workers’ commuting habits will keep some taxes in Mass.
By Todd WallackGlobe Staff / March 24, 2011
When Fidelity Investments closes its Marlborough office next year, with many positions relocating to New Hampshire and Rhode Island, federal employment data will show the event as a loss of as many as 1,100 jobs for Massachusetts.
So will Fidelity’s move really be a major blow to the Bay State economy, or inconsequential?
Fidelity’s recent announcement about the Marlborough closing hit like a thunderclap. Governor Deval L. Patrick fumed that Fidelity did not give him an opportunity “to fight for these jobs.’’ Republicans said that Patrick’s presence on an overseas trade mission at the time showed he wasn’t doing enough to protect jobs on the home front. Meanwhile, state senators announced they would review a mutual fund industry tax break that Fidelity has received.
But as the conflict in the federal data demonstrates, moving jobs a few miles across a state border isn’t necessarily a loss to the local economy. The two other Fidelity centers, in Merrimack, N.H., and Smithfield, R.I., are close to Boston’s outer suburbs and served by major roads. Fidelity said a few thousand of its employees already commute from their homes in Massachusetts to Merrimack or Smithfield, underscoring the fact that cross-border commutes are common in the region.
“It’s not as if those 1,100 people are being fired,’’ said Michael Goodman, chairman of the pub lic policy department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
But borders mean a lot to political leaders, so the loss of hundreds of Fidelity jobs to New Hampshire and Rhode Island still stings.
“Our primary focus is obviously on Massachusetts,’’ said Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray. “We understand these people might be able to keep their jobs, and we try to work regionally on different fronts, such as fishing and transportation.’’
But Murray said he wasn’t happy that any jobs would be leaving the state. “We were elected by the people of Massachusetts.’’
Fidelity said it is making the move primarily because it had too much vacant office space — not because it was disenchanted with the state — and wants to reduce the number of offices it has in New England from four to three.
“This was a decision on how to consolidate our real estate,’’ Fidelity spokeswoman Anne Crowley said.
The company told state leaders that Marlborough was the logical choice to shutter because it was the oldest and smallest of the four sites.
But the news is especially difficult because Massachusetts has already borne the brunt of Fidelity’s worldwide jobs cuts over the past several years as the company responded to the economic downturn.
