Bank of America May Cut 40,000 Jobs
Top executives at Bank of America are meeting today to talk about eliminating roughly 40,000 jobs during the first wave of a restructuring that aims to reduce the bank's workforce of 280,000 over a period of years.
The Wall Street Journal reports the executives are expected to make final decisions on the reductions at a meeting today in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the bank is headquartered.
The Journal says the proposed job cuts may exceed BofA's last big cutback in 2008 when it called for 30,000 to 35,000 job cuts over three years. That move was triggered by an economic slowdown and the planned takeover of securities firm Merrill Lynch & Co.
Investors are pressing BofA to improve its performance after it lost money in four of the last six quarters and its stock has lost half its value this year.
Banks around the world are shedding jobs because stricter regulations and a tough second quarter for trading income are taking their toll on investment banking units in particular.
More than 70,000 staff cuts have been announced this year or are reported to be in the works at U.S. and European banks, some of them to be lost over three or four year programs.
Bank of America has branches in Lufkin and a number of other east Texas cities. No one knows how many, if any, BofA branches will be closed, but big corporate cut-backs often include closing the less "profitable" branches outside highly populated urban areas.
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