JP Morgan Chase: 11,000 workers to be retrenched

JPMorgan Chase will cut 3,000 more jobs than previously planned this year in its retail banking businesses, bringing the total to 11,000, a senior executive said Friday.

The US banking giant had announced in February it would trim its retail banking unit by about 8,000 by the end of the year.

But Gordon Smith, chief executive of Chase Consumer & Community Banking, told a Boston conference that the company was moving more swiftly in downsizing.

In the non-mortgage consumer banking business, where about 2,000 jobs had been planned for elimination, Smith said the company was on track to exit the year with 4,000 fewer people.

The mortgage business will see an additional 1,000 jobs cut, for a total of roughly 7,000, he said.

The staff reductions at the largest US bank by assets are part of a cost-cutting program aimed at reducing spending by $2 billion in the mortgage business and by 1.0 percent for the rest of the retail banking operations.

Smith also reiterated JPMorgan’s forecast to shave $2 billion in spending by the end of 2016.

JPMorgan employed a total of 265,000 people at the end of 2013.

Most of the large US banks have cut staff in their mortgage businesses in recent years, as tighter credit conditions imposed following the housing market crash have curbed lending.

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