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Discover Financial Services plans to reduce its workforce by approximately 500 people next month, CardLine has learned. The layoffs are "in order to better align the Company's cost structure with the current economic environment," a Discover spokesperson wrote in an e-mail response to a CardLine query today. The cuts will be primarily at Discover's Riverwoods, Ill., headquarters."We have taken prudent steps to reduce expenses and boost efficiencies," David Nelms, Discover's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "However, rising charge-offs, decreases in consumer spending and the instability of the credit-card securitization markets are affecting the entire industry. Discover must take these additional, difficult steps to manage through this unprecedented environment and put our business in the strongest possible position going forward." Discover did not make additional details of the pending layoffs immediately available.
