A drop in refinance originations has Wells Fargo & Co. cutting 20 percent of the mortgage staff it temporarily hired to handle increased refinance volume.
The company has notified the State of Iowa that it will layoff 142 employees during the next two months, a company spokesman confirmed in a telephone interview.
The layoffs impact “interim members,” which the spokesman described as employees who were hired on a temporary basis to help with the higher level of refinance transactions.
Impacted positions included retail closers, processors and underwriters.
The Iowa layoffs are not the only jobs being eliminated.
“We did some make some other notifications in other markets,” the spokesman explained.
While he wouldn’t specify how many other mortgage jobs were being cut, he did indicate that the Iowa layoffs were part of a move to cut 20 percent of its total interim mortgage staff.
Last week, the lender said it was eliminating 145 wholesale lending positions. The impacted jobs include wholesale fulfillment positions such as underwriters and processors who were originally hired on a short-term basis to handle an unusually high volume of refinance transactions.
Company-wide headcount finished last year at 272,200.
