JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) now says it plans to cut 17,000 jobs by the end of next year, according to Bloomberg. The bank said in February it would eliminate 4,000 jobs, but now it could cut even more if it intends to eliminate 17,000 by the end of 2014.
The banking industry has actually posted its best results in more than six years, although the six biggest banks in the U.S. are still planning to cut deep. In all, 21,000 jobs could be eliminated from the U.S. banking industry, including the 17,000 cuts planned by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM).
That’s the largest amount of jobs since the third quarter of 2011, according to Bloomberg, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. is leading the way—even though it posted three years in a row of record profits.
It’s expected that the positions which will be the most at risk for elimination are in areas where the demand is starting to taper off, like mortgage foreclosures. Over the past five years 320,000 jobs have been slashed from the U.S. financial industry.
An analyst interviewed by Bloomberg predicted that most of the cuts will come in the first half of this year, even though in previous years the cuts were spread out over the year. He made that prediction because banks likely need to cut jobs that are no longer needed due to the housing recovery as quickly as possible.
Banks will begin reporting their results from the first quarter of this year later this week, so we could hear more specifics about what they are planning then.
Both JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) are set to release their first quarter results April 12.
