U.S. sales of new homes rose in April and nearly matched the fastest pace in five years, driving the median price to a record high. The gains suggest the housing recovery is strengthening. New-home sales increased 2.NEW YORK – JPMorgan will trim about 19,000 jobs over the next two years but cast a positive spin on the news: It is shrinking the unit it had beefed up to handle troubled mortgages.
The bulk of the cuts, about 15,000, will come at the mortgage unit, which had swelled to about 50,000 workers from a pre-financial crisis roster of 20,000 because the bank needed more people to process defaulted mortgages. The bank said it hopes to find jobs in other parts of the company for displaced workers through a “redeployment” program.
The rest of the cuts, about 4,000, will come from the consumer banking business, mostly the branches. JPMorgan said those cuts will come through attrition, not layoffs.
The bank noted that it’s also adding jobs in certain areas, such as commercial banking and asset management. Overall, it expects its payroll to be down by about 17,000 at the end of 2014. That means it would fall to about 242,000 from its current 259,000, a 6.5 percent cut.
The cuts were revealed in a presentation to investors Tuesday and are part of the bank’s bigger cost-cutting campaign.
JPMorgan, like its peers, is facing a host of challenges. Banks are navigating new government regulations that have crimped some old sources of revenue.
