PHH Cutting Florida Jobs

Over the past year, the Mount Laurel, N.J.-based lender had been increasing its staffing in order to meet anticipated mortgage originations.

PHH noted in its second-quarter 10Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that employee expenses were up $11 million “primarily due to an increase in the average number of permanent employees in the mortgage production operations.”

“Additional resources were added throughout 2012 in order to meet increased demand and cycle times for mortgage loans, and to develop our mortgage compliance, loan quality and customer service initiatives,” the SEC filing stated. “In addition, during 2013 we maintained excess origination capacity in preparation for the spring home buying season and the launch of our private label relationship with HSBC.”

But now the company is scaling back its human resource assets.

PHH reported the planned layoffs Thursday to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification

The job cuts are taking place at a facility in Jacksonville.

According to the WARN filing, 365 “finance and insurance” employees are impacted by the layoffs.

The layoffs began on Oct. 3 and will be complete by Dec. 2.

A PHH spokesman didn’t respond to a request for a statement.

But the company did offer some insight in its 10Q filing.

“As consumer demand for mortgage loans has declined, we intend to reduce contract labor and overtime, and we intend to reduce staffing in our mortgage production operations and overhead functions to align our cost structure with the current mortgage production environment,” the SEC filing stated. “Assuming mortgage interest rates and our mortgage origination volumes remain near their current levels, we currently expect to reduce staffing during the remainder of 2013.”