Bank of America Corp., which chopped 2,900 New England jobs after buying FleetBoston Financial Corp. last year, is doing some hiring in the region.
And by the end of next year it will have offset all of those cuts, a spokesman said Monday.
He said the Charlotte company has already hired 150 of the 700 to 900 people who will staff the East Providence, R.I., call center it plans to open in October. Nine hundred plus the 300 wealth management jobs moved to Boston this year would bring New England hires to 1,200.
He would not say where in the region the other 1,700 would work.
Last August the $1.2 trillion-asset company cut 800 jobs at Fleet's 1,500 branches in the Northeast. It also has eliminated hundreds of posts in Boston, where Fleet was headquartered, and other Massachusetts locations, drawing fire from a wide range of public officials.
Bank of America said in 2003 that it would return employment in New England to the 17,900 jobs that existed at Fleet prior to the acquisition.
The Providence call center will require an investment of about $60 million for payroll and construction. It will mostly handle calls for the company's consumer operations.
The spokesman said B of A selected Rhode Island last year because it has an "outstanding labor pool" and because of advocacy efforts from local and state officials.
According to published reports, the company also qualified for at least $2 million in tax breaks from Rhode Island. The spokesman declined to comment on the incentives except to say the state "really went above and beyond" lobbying for the center.
He pointed out that East Providence is close enough for people from southeastern Massachusetts to commute there for jobs. He said he did not know if locations outside Rhode Island had been under consideration.
B of A has been looking to eliminate up to 12,500 jobs across the company to reduce its annual expenses by $1.375 billion.
