Following recent reports that Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and other large lenders are reducing staffing in their mortgage divisions, due to declining volume for both originations and refinancings, Citigroup announced this week that it is eliminating about 1,000 jobs in its home mortgage business.
About 760 of the affected workers are in Citigroup's Las Vegas offices, according to a Reuters report. The cuts represent about 8% of the 13,000 jobs in the bank's mortgage division.
It is unclear whether the thousand job cuts announced this week are part of the estimated 2,200 layoffs that Citigroup was reportedly planning two weeks ago. On Sept. 11, Fox News reported that the bank was planning to lay off about 2,200 workers by early next year.
With only 3.9% of the mortgage market, Citigroup's residential mortgage lending business is small by comparison to that of Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Wells Fargo reportedly holds about 22.5% of the market, while JPMorgan Chase has about 10.9%, according to the report.
Unlike the job cuts previously announced by the other big banks, which mostly affected call center workers that deal with delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures, Citigroup is planning to cut roughly 800 workers in sales, underwriting and fulfillment. Another 200 jobs are on the servicing side of the business.
In addition to the jobs in Las Vegas, the bank is cutting about 100 in Irving, Texas, according to the Reuters report.
In December, Citigroup announced that it would be cutting staffing by up to 11,000 workers across all divisions by the end of 2013. As of September 2012, the bank had approximately 261,000 employees globally and had already eliminated up to 25% of its workforce since the financial crisis began in September 2008.
The recent rounds of cuts are due to a massive drop in volume for both mortgage originations and refinancings resulting from rising interest rates.
