Boston Companies Adding Jobs The Fastest

Tech hiring has slowed. Here are the Boston firms adding jobs the fastest.

Data for this article was provided by the ON Partners 2019 Digital Jobs Index, reporting on the nation’s largest tech centers of Boston, New York City and the Bay Area.

Featured in Boston Business Journal written by Lucia Maffei — March 5, 2020 — The local technology industry shifts quickly. Sometimes, companies are hiring like crazy, bringing in hundreds of new people at a time. The next quarter, they cut entire divisions when their strategy shifts.

For example, two of the 10 local tech companies that hired the most people last year have laid off workers since the start of this year. A third company announced a merger leading to the creation of a combined company worth $22 billion and hundreds of new positions in Massachusetts.

“Among the top 10 largest tech hiring companies in Boston for 2019, we’ve already seen some concerns entering 2020,” according to John Barrett, a Boston-based partner at recruiting firm ON Partners, who compiled recent hiring information using LinkedIn data. “Both Wayfair and TripAdvisor have announced recent layoffs. Wayfair in particular accounted for almost 40% of the increased tech headcount in 2019 and a slowdown there will have a material impact for this year in the overall employment scene,” he wrote in an email.

Barrett has been putting together hiring reports using this method since 2012. He observes that while overall tech hiring remained strong in 2019, it was down from 2018 in the major tech hubs.

Approximately 4,100 jobs were added in Greater Boston in 2019, a 6% annual gain. In 2018, Boston’s annual gain of tech hires reached 9.2%. The rate of increase in the past year also slowed in New York City, where tech hiring increased by 8,190 jobs, or 10% (compared to 13.4% in 2018), and in the Bay Area, where there was an increase of 27,500 jobs, or 11.5% (compared to 12.7% in 2018).

Needham-based TripAdvisor Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP) eliminated about 200 positions in January this year, in an effort to reduce and re-allocate expenses towards growth areas. Internet retailer Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W) cut 350 jobs in its Copley Place headquarters the following month. Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) of Cambridge and LogMeIn Inc. (Nasdaq: LOGM) of Boston also reduced their workforce by dozens.

Wayfair, Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) and HubSpot Inc. (NYSE: HUBS) have been the “primary drivers” of cumulative headcount growth in the local industry for years, Barrett said last year.

To read the full article, visit Boston Business Journal.

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