Rocket Mortgage cuts some marketing roles. Are more layoffs coming?

Rocket Mortgage "reorganized" its marketing team last week, cutting 20 employees.

A Rocket spokesperson confirmed the marketing layoffs, but did not elaborate any further. According to a former employee and to LinkedIn posts, the lender handed out pink slips in December and had a 10% personnel reduction in the summer.  The Rocket spokesperson said that these layoffs did not occur.

A source claims that Rocket Mortgage is in the process of implementing another 10% reduction across the company in January and said names of low-performing employees were submitted in November. 

"The layoffs have already started, but it's not all happening on the same day, it will happen throughout the whole month of January," the former Rocket employee said.

Rocket's spokesperson denied that such an initiative exists. 

Some employees who received pink slips in recent months were allegedly given two months severance and three months of health care coverage. However, Rocket would not confirm what the terms were for the 20 employees let go last week.

News of recent layoffs comes days after Rocket announced a reshuffling of upper management, and months of low origination activity in the market at large.

Rocket Mortgage promoted Mike Fawaz as its new executive vice president of Rocket Pro TPO, while Austin Niemiec became Rocket Mortgage's chief revenue officer.

Meanwhile, in the third quarter the lender ceded the throne of top originator to United Wholesale Mortgage, which bested its total quarterly mortgage loan volume by $7.9 billion according to their earnings reports. Rocket originated $25.6 billion during the most recent period, compared with $34.5 billion in the previous quarter and $88 billion one year prior. UWM reported third quarter volume of $33.5 billion.

Editor's note: This article has been amended to reflect that Rocket representatives said accounts of prior layoffs are false.