Wells Fargo announces new round of layoffs in Charlotte area

Wells Fargo has made more layoffs within its Fort Mill mortgage operation, according to a notice filed with the state of South Carolina.

The layoffs stem from the closure of Wells' reverse-mortgage servicing operating unit, a move impacting 120 jobs, according to the notice this month. Wells Fargo said the closure resulted from an agreement struck last year to transfer all of the reverse mortgages it had been servicing to another company.

In a statement, Wells Fargo spokesman Josh Dunn said the move will result in the elimination servicing positions at a call center in Fort Mill.

Dunn said Wells Fargo is committed to retaining as many of the employees as it can and, where possible, is working to identify other opportunities for them within Wells or support them as they transition outside the company.

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"The decision to reduce our workforce is made with great concern for our team members, who have each been an essential part of our success," Dunn said.

The move comes at a time when Wells is seeking to shed $4 billion in expenses through the end of 2019, as it tries to improve an efficiency measure closely tracked by investors and recover from a scandal over fake accounts. Wells has previously said it expects job reductions from centralizing and streamlining processes, and by cutting back in its mortgage business.

Wells Fargo maintains its biggest employment hub in Charlotte, with workers across a variety of business lines. Dunn said Wells Fargo’s metro area employment will remain unchanged at about 24,100 even with the new job cuts.

Employees affected by the new layoffs were notified last Wednesday, according to the notice. Separate layoffs were announced July 13, bringing the total to 120.

The latest layoffs follow a Wells’ disclosure in July that it eliminated more than 2,000 jobs during the three-month period that ended June 30. That marked Wells’ biggest quarterly decline in employees since 5,700 reductions toward the end of 2013, when it shaved large numbers of mortgage jobs.

According to the bank, a portion of the 2,000 decline stemmed from attrition.

In recent years, Wells Fargo has laid off hundreds of people in Fort Mill and elsewhere in the country. In describing such cuts, the bank has often cited drops in home-loan delinquency and foreclosure rates as well as slumping demand to refinance mortgages.

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