Our apologies to all Xconomy readers for ending the week on a downer, but it’s time for a roundup of the week’s tech layoff news around Boston.
On Wednesday, Cambridge, MA-based Akamai said it would cut 110 jobs, or about 7 percent of its workforce.
On Thursday Luke reported news of 30 more layoffs at Cambridge, MA-based CombinatoRx, leaving the beleaguered biotech with about 55 people, one third the company’s size prior to news earlier this month that its main arthritis drug had failed in clinical trials.
Earlier today we reported that the healthcare unit of Royal Philips NV, headquartered in Andover, MA, will cut about 1,600 people from its staff worldwide, with about 100 of those cuts occurring in Andover.
Xconomy has also received unconfirmed reports about layoffs at two more local companies. WSI, an Andover, MA, company that provides weather information to media, energy, and aviation firms, cut 28 workers or about 10 percent of its staff on November 13, according to one source. And NameMedia, a Waltham, MA company that auctions (and sells advertising on) parked Internet domains, cut 30 workers on November 11, according to another report. We are attempting to obtain confirmation of these job cuts, but at press time no one at either company had responded to our inquiries.
We’ve updated our Boston Tech Layoff Tracker with the latest numbers.
Author: Wade Roush
Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco.
Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.)
I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia.
I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats.
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