Wells Fargo, the lender trying to rebuild its reputation after government claims that it exploited customers, is cutting 100 mortgage-unit jobs as the housing market softens in the southeastern U.S.
The reductions in the San Francisco-based company’s office in Fort Mill, S.C. — just south of Charlotte, N.C., — will better align staffing with current sales volume, the bank said in a statement.
Wells Fargo “is committed to retaining valued team members and, where possible, we work to identify other opportunities” inside the company, a spokesman said. “We will do everything we can to make them aware of other job opportunities within Wells Fargo, or support them as they transition to the next phase of their careers.”
The bank, which agreed in April to pay $1 billion to settle a U.S. government probe of its home and auto-lending practices, is grappling with a shift in the housing market as Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan works to restore a brand tarnished by scandals including the creation of more than 3 million unauthorized customer accounts.
Mortgage loans dropped 19 percent to $43 billion in the first three months of the year, compared with late 2017, and home-loan applications fell 8 percent, Wells Fargo reported in April. Nationwide housing permits, a gauge of future demand, slipped 4.6 percent this May from the previous month, according to the Census Bureau.
They dropped 14 percent in the southern U.S. alone, while housing starts in the region slipped almost 1 percent. Sales of existing homes in the South dropped 0.4 percent the same month to an annual rate of 2.32 million, according to the National Association of Realtors
