Wells Fargo cuts 1,900 mortgage jobs, Bank of America cuts 1,500
By Oregon Small Business Association

West coast bank Wells Fargo cut 1,900 employees from the mortgage unit nationwide last month. The layoffs were announced on March 23 and gave the employees 60 days’ notice. The San Francisco company gave the slowdown in the mortgage business as a reason for the cuts. Wells Fargo saw mortgage originations fall to $386 billion last year from $420 billion in 2009.

Many of the 1,900 employees were temporary hires that were brought in as consumer interests in refinancing surged when interest rates lowered. The cut represents less than 1 percent of Wells Fargo’s 272,000 work force, the San Francisco Business Times reports in their article here.

In similar news, Bank of America announced this month that they are eliminating 1,500 jobs that are based in their mortgage origination department. Bank of America is closing nearly 100 mortgage centers across the nation. Bank of America is moving away from creating new loans and instead refocusing on the their existing loans. More from the Charlotte Observer.

These shake-up in the mortgage jobs sector will add to the economic uncertainty of the current housing financial situation while reassuring others that banks are aggressively retuning their operations to free themselves from the previous housing crisis.