WaMu Adding Jobs

Approximately 250 positions are up for grabs at WaMu’s mortgage servicing operation in Florence, according to an e-mail statement from spokeswoman Olivia Riley.

The openings resulted from WaMu’s sale of a $140 billion servicing portfolio of its government mortgages and a portion of conforming fixed-rate loans to Wells Fargo. The deal reportedly included a Milwaukee, Wis., servicing operation whose employees would join Wells between October 2006 and March 2007.

The sale was part of the several actions WaMu announced in July “to improve the company’s market risk profile, to accelerate the achievement of our operating efficiency goals, and to make us a more diversified, profitable company,” Riley said in the statement.

However, “we need to retain some of the functions that were performed at the Milwaukee site,” she added. “We’re in the process of hiring for these positions in Florence now, and this process should be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2007.”

With the new hires, the Florence operation will house about 900 employees, according to the spokeswoman.

In addition to the South Carolina site, WaMu services residential mortgages from Chatsworth, Calif., Jacksonville, Fla., and Melbourne, Fla., Riley said. The operations also perform services for other businesses besides the home loans group.