Fidelity to shift jobs in New England

* Fidelity to add jobs in Boston, Rhode Island

* Mutual fund giant to cut workforce in Massachusetts

NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments, the
world's biggest mutual funds firm, said on Thursday it plans to
move jobs from a suburban Boston facility to its
downtown-Boston headquarters and to its location in nearby
Rhode Island.

The privately held company, which manages roughly $1.3
trillion in assets, plans to add more than 500 jobs in Boston
and a similar number to its Smithfield, Rhode Island, campus,
company spokeswoman Anne Crowley said.

At the same time, it will reduce its workforce in
Marlborough, Massachusetts, by 950 jobs.

Most of the workers are part of Fidelity's Personal and
Workplace Investing division, overseen by Abigail Johnson, vice
chairman at the company her grandfather founded 63 years ago.

The moves reverse a previous trend by Fidelity of moving
jobs out of Boston. They also come on the heels of heavy job
cuts in which the company reduced its workforce by several
thousand workers since last year to save costs after the
financial crisis took a bite out of industry assets and
revenue.

The shifts will help employees work more closely together,
and follow a major renovation of space at one downtown office
building, Crowley said.

Fidelity now employs about 9,500 in its home state of
Massachusetts, down from 12,800 in 2006. Worldwide, the company
employs about 39,000 people, down from 44,000 last year.

The job shifts were first reported by The Boston Globe.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber, editing by Matthew Lewis)