Thread regarding Wells Fargo & Co. layoffs

Many are aware of our Wells Fargo cost cutting Project Compass, we were going to cut spend in 2011 and 2012 and that resulted in thousand laid off at Wells Fargo during this period. All units were affected, if you had to so ‘something’ with our mortgage business it’s likely you had been hit very hard during this period. I know folks who were let go and who worked in Wealth Management, probably over 100 people were let go during this period. Also, back office functions such as IT, Finance and Marketing lost hundreds of folks since 2008. With that being said, during the downturn and the financial markets meltdown, I think we cut thousands of positions. Charlotte and the Carolinas were hit particularly hard, this should not be surprising as we had the most people there but at the same time it was a huge hit for the local economy as it was not able to absorb all those people that quickly. Now, back to 2015 – with the rates historically low and ton of cash out there it’s hard to make money and we are competing very hard in the market – all of our competitors have same issues and all of them are laying people off. I would not be surprised if 2015 layoffs at Wells Fargo come very soon, as I am sure the management is trying to figure out what is the best way of generating returns and increasing profits – cutting costs is an obvious solution, and payroll expense is one of our biggest cost. So, let’s see what happens and how quickly 2015 layoffs take place, I would expect something in Q2 or maybe Q3 but you never know.