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Article: Layoffs: Pink Slips Abound in '06, But Next Year May Improve: Institutions lay off 19,000-plus-so far.
- Article from:
- Banking Wire
- Article date:
- December 4, 2006
- Author:
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Although 19,000-plus employees were laid off at Washington Mutual, PNC Financial, Ameriquest and Countrywide Financial this year, financial industry analysts and consultants predict pink slips will be a rarity in 2007.
"We've been through the bulk [of mortgage-related downsizing already]," according to TowerGroup senior analyst Robert Hunt, adding that the industry's highly competitive profit centers, like wealth management, need warm bodies to staff them.
Banks are also growing more reticent at risking customer attrition through poor service, which makes them unlikely to rely on skeleton crews. "We just don't anticipate widespread, across-the-board ...