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| A wave of layoffs continued to roll through the mortgage sector. Among more than 2,000 recent layoffs, just over half were at firms that have halted operations, and the rest were at major financial institutions. A California desert town was hit especially hard, while the Charlotte, N.C., area saw significant hiring and firing activity.Citigroup Inc. reported that 754 jobs were cut on Feb. 14 in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. A spokesman confirmed the layoffs were at Citi Residential Lending and involved employees of the former Argent Mortgage Co. — which Citi acquired from ACC Capital Holdings in August 2007. Servicing employees were primarily impacted.
Citigroup disclosed the layoffs in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with California’s Employment Development Department. Employers are required to notify any state at least 60 days ahead of planned layoffs involving at least 50 employees. Last month’s closing of EquiFirst Corp. will result in 548 layoffs in Mecklenburg County, N.C., on April 18, a WARN filing in that state said. Mecklenburg County includes Charlotte, where Bank of America Corp. is based and also where Wachovia Corp. was based before it was acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. on Dec. 31, 2008. A California WARN filing by American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. indicated that 210 employees would be laid off in Irvine, Calif., on April 15. American Home is adding, however, around 900 servicing employees at a new facility in Coppell, Texas. California was notified by BoA that it laid off 30 San Francisco employees on March 25. Meanwhile, the Charlotte-based institution notified North Carolina of 139 layoffs in Mecklenburg Country on March 10. A spokeswoman said the layoffs were probably not mortgage-related. A WARN filing by Chase Home Lending indicated that it planned to layoff 52 wholesale employees next month in Orange, Calif. Chase operates a regional wholesale operations center there but exited wholesale lending during January. In North Carolina, JPMorgan Chase & Co. notified the state that it would layoff 92 people in Mecklenburg County on April 4 due to a permanent closing. A spokesman couldn’t immediately confirm if the impacted positions were mortgage-related. The collapse of Central States Mortgage earlier this month impacted 107 employees, Internet Broadcasting Systems Inc. reported. In Lake Marcy, Fla., Accredited Home Lenders laid off 53 employees on March 17, a WARN filing Monday said. Another 38 were laid off on March 17 in West Chester, Ohio, a March 20 filing with Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services said. Around 80 Des Plaines, Ill., employees were laid off when Residential Loan Centers of America shut down on Feb. 15, a filing with the state of Illinois said last month. Residential had an estimated 200 employees nationally. LandAmerica Financial Group Inc. plans to layoff 291 Glen Allen, Va., employees on April 1, a filing with the Commonwealth of Virginia on Jan. 30 said. LandAmerica filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code during November 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond, Va. Offsetting the job losses in Mecklenburg County will be 200 hirings planned by GMAC Financial Services over the next two years, a statement last week from N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue said. The jobs at the bank-holding company include positions in finance, marketing and information technology with average annual salaries projected at $96,124. Amerisave Mortgage is advertising to hire 20 to 30 loan call center originators to work from home. Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative said earlier this month that it endorsed Sam Black Consulting Services to help its members recruit, train and manage employees. |
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