Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

I can confirm that 100% of the recent hires have been people with very long foreign names which I assume are people in India. Wells is hiring like crazy.

Sorting the list of employees by Hire Date is how I got this info. I don't have any special access, but I can see certain reports which are broadly shared.

I was laid off in October after 19 years. Always a good performer. I got an offer from a competitor 3 days later for a big increase in pay. I could not be happier. My suggestion is to start looking for a job now so you have something lined up if you do get laid off. It is easier to get a new job when you are still employed and you will be able to negotiate a better salary.

@qtl, the piece about people in hub locations "not being let go" was in relation to the location strategy (for tech) not meaning the hub locations wouldn't be subject to layoffs overall with the rest of the company due to performance, spans/layers and other decisions.

Strategy is NOT to "move to India." There has always been a target percentage US/India, which I believe is 60/40, more or less.

Early 2021 will see performance-based layoffs. I had three on my team that will likely be impacted there, but I won't know because I got my papers on 11/17. IT, 13 years in, strong ratings every year, but underutilized and a logical choice for displacement within my org.

Wells has been people-heavy for a LONG time. They never got rid of enough people after the Wachovia merger. A 50k total would not surprise me, and it just plain makes sense. Operating expenses are SIGNIFICANTLY higher than any other major bank. That's not how you stay competitive.

People have lots of reasons to stay. Maybe older, less marketable and life considerations outweigh the chase up the ladder at this point. Work 40 years and maybe you develop a different world view. This particularly true for high achieving workaholics. The light that burns twice as bright often burns half as long.

Logical plan or sheer randomness? It will be relentless and nobody in their right mind can assume they are "safe" for any amount of time. It's an endless scene out of "Marathon Man" (Laurence Olivier/Dustin Hoffman) – "Is it safe?"

Friday headcount under Scharf was below 270k. Have heard HR a mess, parts of exit pages had to be redone.

Layoffs is the one thing Wells is good at. They do it in little drips all over the country as to avoid a big headline. Senior management has said 60k over several years. Charlie is an ax man. It will happen. Expecting it to happen in a Big Bang is naive

The strategy is move more positions to India! Go figure!

So is there any rhyme or reason (besides cost reduction) to how/when people are being let go? Is it just 20-25% throughout the company or are certain groups/positions being targeted?

K–ls me how they said last year that people not in a hub would be let go. Then they backed off when the pandemic happened (and since it moved us to being remote, guess we really didn’t need a hub after all). Then said no one would be let go during the pandemic, then reversed course there.

Multiple people let go in my group over the past 30 days. Told that I’m safe for the rest of the year, but in light of all the other statements made that ended up not being true, not holding my breath and waiting to get axed

My manager told us on Thursday that this is going to take 2 to 3 years. Layoffs are happening. We were told we probably will be ok the rest of the year, but we will have layoffs in 2021. We were also told that when it is safe, a hub strategy will be enforced-for everyone even if you are 100% remote and have been remote for years. In my opinion, that should get rid of plenty of folks in my department.

It is BS. My manager was let go and had known it was happening on Tue since the previous Thu

I guess I was one of the few. I was in technology and after 17 years was told by my manager on Tuesday that my position was eliminated and she claimed to not know anything about it until Monday night. I call BS on that.

Said goodbye via Skype to a couple of people then signed off. Heard about two others in tech / QA that i worked with that were also let go. I was always a performer and tried to support the latest company line with peers so it hurts but am a little happy to be gone now.

Yea strange why people just stay here to get picked off; its clear everyone will be wiped out and replace with cheaper workers with the right skillset and mindset. Not fighting new technology every step of the way.

Its not if , its when.