WaMu Slashing 3400 Jobs in Seattle

In the two months since federal regulators seized and sold Washington Mutual's banking operations to JPMorgan Chase & Co., WaMu employees have been resigned to the likelihood that thousands of them would be out of work.

On Monday, they found out just how many: 3,400 employees, out of 4,300 the company had in Seattle at the time of the takeover.

Those 3,400 are part of the 9,200 WaMu jobs that JPMorgan Chase is cutting nationally, out of 43,000 the Seattle-based consumer bank and mortgage company had.

The New York-based company had pledged to let all WaMu employees know their status -- staying with the company, being laid off or remaining in a temporary or transition job through next year -- by Dec. 1.

JPMorgan Chase said 1,500 of the jobs to be cut in Seattle will be eliminated by Jan. 31. The other 1,900 are in transition jobs that will disappear on varying dates during 2009. Nationally, 4,000 jobs are being cut now, and 5,200 more employees will be laid off in the next year.

Spokesman Tom Kelly said the jobs are all at WaMu's downtown Seattle headquarters offices, in administrative, support, operational and back-office positions that duplicate existing jobs elsewhere in the company.

None of WaMu's 190 branches in the state is being closed.

The WaMu cuts aren't the biggest single-employer layoffs the Puget Sound regional economy has endured. Several rounds of Boeing cuts, including 23,000 jobs in the region over a two-year period following 9/11, dwarf the number of jobs the bank is eliminating.

But the WaMu layoffs do come at a time when the regional economy is facing layoffs at Kenworth's Renton truck plant; state, county and municipal governments will be cutting jobs to close budget deficits; and even healthy companies such as Microsoft have said hiring won't be as strong next year. The regional economy has already taken layoff hits such as Weyerhaeuser cutting 1,000 jobs at its Federal Way headquarters earlier this year.

"It's unfortunate to have this in conjunction with everything else," said regional labor economist Desiree Phair of the state Employment Security Department.

Renita Glaser, 37, stopped to talk Monday outside WaMu Center downtown, saying she had just run up to her office to pick up the paperwork connected with her layoff. The mother of two young daughters, Glaser worked in WaMu's marketing-operations group for five years and said she'd had an inkling since September that her days were numbered.

"There was always the hope that they (Chase) might keep a Seattle base, since they didn't have anything on the West Coast, but as time went on, it didn't look like they were going to be doing that," Glaser said.

The work done by her group will be moved to Cleveland, and she said several from her group accepted positions and are moving there. But she's decided not to join them.

"Now I'll enjoy the holidays and look for a job in January," she said. "The shock happened back in September -- that's when I was really sad at everything that happened. We've had some time to get over it."

Charlie Waldburger, 24, said he wasn't upset to get his layoff notice Monday. As a member of WaMu's finance leadership program, "I knew my role wasn't mission-critical, so I made the assumption I'd be laid off," he said.

He said the layoffs "are the nature of the business. We can't fault anyone. These things happen, so we've got to find another role in finance now."

http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/2008/12/2/wamu_slashing_3400_jobs

Business Financial Services

WaMu Slashing 3400 Jobs in Seattle