Bank of America Cutting 540 Mortgage Jobs

Bank of America (BAC) plans to lay off 540 more mortgage employees in Charlotte, N.C.

Workers in the legacy asset servicing division were informed of the latest cuts Wednesday. Nearly two-thirds of the division's workers in the Charlotte area are affected. The jobs will be eliminated in late August, B of A said in a fact sheet for the media.

The division was created in February 2011 to handle 1.4 million home loans in default, many of them subprime loans originated by Countrywide, the home lender B of A purchased in 2008. The division initiates foreclosure proceedings and deals with investors who want to buy back troubled mortgages.

Bank of America is said to have had 26,400 employees in the division as of the first quarter. At its peak, there were 59,000 workers and contractors.

Banks such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC), SunTrust (STI) Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) and B of A have been eliminating thousands of mortgage-related jobs since refinancing and other mortgage business began cooling last year.

"We're going to continue to help everybody that's impacted [by the Charlotte layoff] make a positive transition, whether it's in this company or if it's outside of this company," Charles Bowman, the president of B of A's Charlotte market, told The Charlotte Observer, which reported the layoffs on Wednesday.

There is an immediate opportunity for 150 of the affected Charlotte employees to get assigned to another division of the bank in Charlotte, the B of A fact sheet said. Furthermore,  the bank has 250 open positions locally.

A year ago Bank of America laid off dozens of workers in its hometown of Charlotte from various businesses, and more than 400 legacy asset servicing workers in the Dallas area were cut.

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