WaMu to cut 2,500 jobs as housing market cools

[UpInArms]

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-02-15T215900Z_01_N15305859_RTRIDST_0_FINANCIAL-WASHINGTONMUTUAL-UPDATE-1.XML

CHICAGO, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Responding to the cooling housing market, Washington Mutual Inc. (WM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the largest U.S. savings and loan, said on Wednesday that it was laying off 2,500 support employees in its mortgage unit.

The Seattle, Washington-based company said it was also reducing the number of mortgage processing offices to 16 from 26 and sending some of the work to "lower cost domestic and offshore locations."

<snip>

At the time, the bank said it expected its current overseas workforce of 1,700 full-time employees would more than triple to 6,000 within two years.

Like its rivals in the home lending business, Washington Mutual is dealing with a drop in activity as interest rates rise and the housing market cools.

In the most recent quarter, Washington Mutual said that revenue from the sale and servicing of mortgages tumbled nearly 47 percent $264 million during the fourth quarter.

...more...

I'd worry, but our economy is just roaring along :sarcasm:

[marmar]

1. Fellow Romans, can you smell the smoke?

:yoiks:

[acmejack]

5. No, but I believe I hear fiddle music!

One of them Italian fellows...

[NanceGreggs]

2. Yeah, with all the GREAT JOBS out there ...

... these people will be dazzled by all of the choices they'll have!

[AzDar]

3. Current overseas workforce to triple? How many times does it take

to read crap like this before people wake up and see that our future is being shipped overseas piece by friggin' piece???

[progressivebydesign]

4. We're back in a good market here again... houses are selling well

I think the most important thing to understand is that the pace of the past year was stratospheric, and there is nowhere to go but either across or down. The housing market has not crashed, it cooled. Layoffs in the mortgage sector are not unusual, and usually follow a period of rate increases, as King Greenpsan doled out. Our housing market is picking right back up, but I'm hoping that the insane price increases are moderated... still things are selling in days now, not weeks or months, as it was late fall and during the holidays.

The rush for people to refinance before the rates got higher, and to purchase and sell before then, AND.. the energy costs and most important factor, consumer confidence, have all fueled stories like this of WAMU. The Feds rush to portray the economy as SOOO HOT that inflation is an issue, was bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. Raising the rates to cool inflation, when inflation was SOLELY in the form of energy costs articially jacked up by the oil companies, was criminal.

Greenspan lowered the rates to an obscene level to spur the economy to make Bush look good, then raised them again, in response to the so-called strong economy (that wasn't). It's all smoke and mirrors. They don't know what the fuck they're doing.

There is only one reliable indicator of our economy, AND it happens to be the REAL engine of our economy, CONSUMER CONFIDENCE. As it goes, so does the economy. When you have a never-ending, ugly, war, scandals in the White House, talk of a pandemic, gas prices from hell, and energy costs skyrocketing, consumer confidence plummets. It's a Bush family quality, it happens every time one of them sets foot in the WHite House.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Offshoring America's mortages

That's really cute.


Why do the BushCo neoCON Republican cronies hate America?

[jaysunb]

7. My wife works there

got the axe today. 18 years.....

[TheCentepedeShoes]

8. Damn...

I'm sorry. :-( This stuff sucks.

[UpInArms]

9. ...

:(

:hug:

[jaysunb]

10. Thanks !

to you both . :hi: