Wells Cuts Mortgage Tech Jobs

The company today issued 60-day advance layoff notices to roughly 130 employees in Des Moines, Lynn Greenwood, a senior vice president Wells Fargo Home and Consumer Finance Group, indicated in an e-mail statement.

“This change is not market related,” Greenwood said in the statement. “Rather the project involves the development of end-to-end technology to improve our customer’s experience in getting a real estate-secured loan. In this case, the project reached a key milestone in 2007 and is entering the next phase of technology development.”

The job cuts include managers, lending experts and technology developers who worked in a unit dedicated solely to a technology project, she added.

Greenwood noted affected employees are being encouraged to apply and will be given preference for other open positions within the project and company. The Des Moines area holds about 200 open positions.

Those who do not find other jobs within Wells will be eligible to receive separation benefits, including salary continuation based on years of service.

“Our goal is always to place as many team members as possible into open positions, and we will attempt to do so in this case,” Greenwood said.

The layoffs reportedly represent about 1 percent of Well’s workforce of 12,900 in Iowa, the vast majority in the Des Moines area, where the home and consumer finance group is based.

Des Moines saw layoffs last July, when it shared 170 job cuts with Baton Rouge, La., as a result of Wells exiting subprime lending. That same month, Wells had eliminated around 250 employees due to shutting prime wholesale operations in six cities throughout five states.

In the first half of 2007, Wells exit from subprime correspondent business resulted in 13 layoffs after nonprime credit policy changes reduced staff by 320 in California and South Carolina.