A Massive Bank Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Iowa

March 6, 2024

A massive bank now announces unexpected layoffs in Iowa for the second time in just two weeks, sources report.

It’s important to note that under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, an employer with more than 100 full-time workers must provide a 60-day notice before laying off 50 or more people at a single site.

Wells Fargo filed yet another notice with the Iowa Workforce Development Department this week.

The notice advised the company is cutting 22 employees, effective Tuesday, which comes just two weeks after Wells Fargo announced 36 layoffs at the same location on February 20th.

“We regularly review and adjust staffing levels to align with market conditions and the needs of our businesses.

We work very hard to identify opportunities for employees in other parts of the company so we can retain as many employees as possible.

Where it’s not possible, we provide assistance, such as severance and career counseling,” said Wells Fargo spokesman Mike Slusark.

The most recent round of cuts brings to 262 the publicly announced number of workers pared from Wells Fargo’s Des Moines metro employment rolls since April 2023, and to 1,378 the number cut since 2018, according to WARN records.

Wells Fargo’s continued layoffs were expected, reports Des Moines Register.

“The San Francisco-based bank’s CEO, Charlie Scharf, announced in late 2023 that he was anticipating severance costs of $750 million to $1 billion in the upcoming year.”

Overall, the bank ― until recently, the Des Moines metro’s largest employer ― shed 11,300 jobs, or 4.7% of its workforce, in 2023, according to YahooFinance.

That year began with Wells Fargo’s announcement it would make big reductions in its Des Moines-based home mortgage business as rising interest rates slashed demand.

And in December, Wells Fargo sold a six-story West Des Moines building at 7001 Westown Parkway that formerly was the mortgage division’s headquarters.

It has also been emptying out several of its downtown Des Moines office buildings as it concentrates its remaining metro staff at the Jordan Creek Parkway campus.

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Another bank now announces hundreds of unexpected layoffs in its retail operations as it transitions to online services.

Santander has cut about 320 of its U.S. roles in recent days, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg and Reuters.

Many of the layoffs are centered on the bank’s retail operations as Santander looks to give itself more of a digital focus, in line with a strategy Chair Ana Botin emphasized around this time last year at the bank’s investor day.

“Now it’s time to accelerate towards building a digital bank with branches,” Botin wrote in an Instagram post in February 2023.

Santander aims to launch a fully digital platform in the U.S. this summer in its consumer and commercial units, according to Reuters.

“We are evolving our US business, investing in digital capabilities and simplified processes to adapt to changing customer needs,” Santander said in a statement seen Sunday by Bloomberg and Reuters.

“These steps have resulted in an update to our staffing model that impacts a small percentage of our branch colleagues.

We will continue to support them throughout this process and are working to provide internal opportunities, where possible.”

The layoffs account for between 2.4% and 2.7% of Santander’s U.S.-based workforce, according to varying figures reported by the wire services.

The move comes at a time when Santander seeks to double its investment banking business in the U.S.

To that end, the bank has aimed to hire 150 employees to build out its investment banking operations in the U.S., Reuters reported in July.

Santander hired more than 100 bankers in 2023 through October, according to the Financial Times, with most of those roles in the U.S. and more than half filled by Credit Suisse alums, reports BankingDive.

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Also Read: A US Bank is Now Denying Customers Access to Money

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