As a follow up to the post, Top 10 Boston Startups With Open Jobs, we are reviewing the top 10 public companies hiring in the local area. According to the Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development, our seasonally adjusted October unemployment rate has dropped to 7.7%, down from 8.7% from a year ago, and a full 2.2% below the current national average. This slow but sustained recovery has been driven in part by our high tech sector, including public companies. The companies making our list were selected for both recent performance and the number of openings. Five of the companies are headquartered in Massachusetts.
EMC (Hopkinton, Westboro, Bedford, more)
EMC’s status as one of the largest high tech employers in Massachusetts was further solidified with its 2006 acquisition of RSA. The combined company delivers infrastructure technologies and solutions focused on storage and security. They have also continued to add to their portfolio, with acquisitions this year of of Isilon Systems, Greenplum and Archer Technologies.
Stock symbol: EMC (NYSE), market capitalization: $42.09B, forward P/E 15.54
Founded: 1979
Vistaprint (Lexington)
Vistaprint provides online design and print solutions to to small and medium businesses. The company provides everything from business cards to checks at a competitive price to your local print shop. Their Lexington office includes technology, marketing, finance and human resources.
Stock symbol: VPRT (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $1.96B, forward P/E 16.60
Founded: 1995
Pegasystems (Cambridge)
Pegasystems provides business process management (BPM) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Their BPM solution supports businesses with making management decisions such as managing risk, optimizing customer service, or improving customer acquisition.
Stock symbol: PEGA (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $1.31B, forward P/E 27.76
Founded: 1983
Iron Mountain (Boston, Burlington, Southboro)
Iron Mountain provides records management, data protection and recovery, and information destruction services. The company is headquartered in Boston, and is best known by most of us for document storage, shredding and transport. The company has had poor earnings in the current recession, but some analysts predict potential again on the horizon.
Stock symbol: IRM (NYSE), market capitalization: $4.69B, forward P/E 19.19
Founded: 1951
TripAdvisor (Newton)
TripAdvisor is a subsidiary of Expedia, a company founded via a Microsoft spin off. The company mission is to enable travelers to plan successful trips through use of their content and community. The site also links seamlessly to other booking tools. The Google ITA acquisition and growth of vertical alternatives such as Yelp may have the potential to impact the company's growth in the medium term, but right now it is well positioned as the largest travel community in the world.
Stock symbol: EXPE (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $7.6B, forward P/E 13.79
Founded: 1999
Constant Contact (Waltham)
Contant contact provides online marketing services to small businesses. Their product allows customers to create, manage and report on campaigns, leveraging both email and surveys. The company was originally founded as Roving Software, and struggled for a while before finding traction under Gail Goodman.
Stock symbol: CTCT (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $872M, forward P/E 45.48
Founded: 1995
Microsoft (Cambridge, Waltham, Boston)
The Redmond giant has multiple locations in Massachusetts, including a development center on Memorial Drive and a sales and service organization in Waltham. The development center is less than three years old, and has been steadily hiring through the recession.
Stock symbol: MSFT (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $233.91B, forward P/E 10.16
Founded: 1975
Netezza (Cambridge)
Netezza is a data warehouse appliance leader that delivers an integrated solution for enterprise warehousing and analytics. The company was acquired by IBM last month for $1.75B, as yet another high tech giant steps into the analytics market.
Stock symbol: IBM (NYSE), market capitalization: $179.92B, forward P/E 11.51
Founded: 1911
Dell (Nashua, NH)
While Dell has kept a relatively low profile in New England, it has continued to grow its distant offices in Nashua, NH. The New England presence was the result of the 2008 acquisition of EqualLogics and the 2007 acquisition of SilverBack Technologies, and has been consolidated at the former Digital Equipment campus in New Hampshire. The primary focus of the site is on the EqualLogics storage product line.
Stock symbol: DELL (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $26.93B, forward P/E 9.26
Founded: 1984
Akamai (Cambridge)
Akamai provides a distributed computing platform that accelerates the delivery of content and applications across the internet. Its primary customers and large high tech, media and internet companies, whose business rely upon the real-time delivery of online media. The company grew from a startup to over 1,750 employees in just over a decade, and is well positioned to manage the continued explosive growth of online content.
Stock symbol: AKAM (Nasdaq), market capitalization: $9.36B, forward P/E 31.30
Founded: 1998
Conclusions
While the recovery has been slow nationwide, the Massachusetts economy appears to finally be gaining traction. A total of 40 counties in Massachusetts had a greater than 2% drop in unemployment in the last year, and 29 had a greater than 1% drop in the last month alone. This recovery has been supported in a large part by our high tech sector, including both private and public companies. If you are on the market, we hope our top 10 lists of startup and public companies will provide you a good place to get started.
For additional companies, take a look at the 2010 Globe 100.
* Company has an office but is not headquartered in Massachusetts