Boston Finance Jobs Cut with Northern Trust Corp

Many Boston finance jobs will soon be lost as a prominent financial institution cuts its workforce.

Northern Trust Corp recently announced its decision to cut 450 jobs, or 3.7 percent of its workforce, because of the declining economy. The company currently employs 12,100 workers, according to an article by Reuters.

Northern Trust, which provides private banking, investment management and global custody services, expects a pretax charge of $20 million to $25 million, or 5 to 7 cents per share, during the fourth quarter. The company hopes the cuts, which won't impact client services, will result in $50 million to $60 million per year in pretax savings.

Northern Trust recently received funds under the U.S. Department of the Treasury's finance industry rescue package.

"We like the fact that management is being proactive with expenses and view this as a positive," Sandler O'Neill & Partners said in the article. "However, at this time, it is hard for us to get more bullish on the stock."

North Trust is not the only company in Boston cutting jobs. One of Northern Trust's biggest rivals, State Street Corp, recently announced its plan to cut 1,800 jobs. Fidelity Investments announced it's considering a plan to reduce its staff by up to 4,000 employees, or 9 percent of the company's workforce. Putnam Investments also fired 12 money managers after the company's assets fell 39 percent during the past year.

The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area's financial services activities industry employed 186,300 workers during October 2008, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's down from 186,900 workers during September and a 1.3 percent decrease from last year.