Bank of America. massive layoffs coming.

[Armistead]

Seems BOA will be laying off somewhere between 30-50,000 people in their first round of cuts to increase their stock price...

Good luck if you work for BOA...:nope:

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90059410?Bank%20of%20America%20may%20layoff%2040%2 C000

[Jimbuna]

Similar situation in the UK banking sector but in proportion of course.

[Gargamel]

BOA are all a bunch of bastards.

I have my reasons.

My sympathy to those getting axed.

[vienna]

It's a pity for those who worked there. They, and those who bank with BofA are paying for the grossly negligent business practices and the overly risky schemes of the very upper management; I wonder how many of the top management will lose their positiions? I know a few have been let go, but in divisions and areas of BofA having little to do with the portion of the firm that caused the crisis.

BofA used to be one of the most trusted and respected banks in the U.S., if not the world. The story of BofA was already legendary in San Francisco when I was growing up there in the 50's and 60's. Everyone knew how A. P. Gianini emigrated from Italy to the U.S. and started a small bank called the Bank of Italy. It served mainly working class, small depositors and grew on the basis of a reputation for safety and fairness. After the San Francisco Great Fire and Earthquake of 1906, all the banks either were unable or refused to open, leaving citizens without a means of retrieving much needed fund from their accounts. Gianini went down to the Bank of Italy and began organizing a makeshift operation. He, his clerks who showed up, and volunteers opened the vault, after debris was cleared and the doors had cooled down. After moving the vaults contents to a location safer than the ruins of San Francisco, Gianini set up a makeshift banking operation consisting of counters made from planks spread across barrel tops. He began to distribute cash to the depositors. The depositors either showed their bankbooks to Gianini or had their status as depositors verified by the clerks. Some were loaned money based on their need and a promise to repay. In this way, citizens were able to begin recovery after the disaster. The story is a prime part of San Francisco history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Giannini

Incidentally, all of the "handshake" loans were fully repaid, a testament to the basic honesty of the working-class people who banked at BofA and the respect and gratitude they had for Gianini...

The problems for BofA really began in the mid to late sixties when executives took over who were more beancounters and conventional banking industry types. In a very short time, BofA lost all respect gained from it prior management and came to be despised by a great many people who once praised the bank. I don't know about the actions of BofA in other parts of the country, but here, in California, the new management aggressively sought to knockout all of their competitors. I worked as a contract employee as part of a project team during the takeover of Security Pacific National Bank (SPNB) by BofA in 1992. The team I worked with were mainly former SPNB Real Estate division employees who, at the time, were unsure of their futures in BofA. It was a justifiable fear since BofA management was not merely content to acquire SPNB; they aimed to remove whatever vestiges of SPNB, whether they were facilities or personnel, that remained. It was a sad sight to witness. At the time of the merger, BofA was so anxious to close the deal, they failed to do full due diligence and found themselves burdened with a major load of questionable, if not actually bad, loans. Just as with the recent Countrywide Financial debacle , the BofA solution was to offeset by increasing various banking and credit fees, in effect setting off the pattern of ever increasing number and amount of charges to bank customers. The tactic spread to other banks as a means of offsetting loses in other parts of a bank's operations. Recently, reports show some of the major U.S. bank obtain as much as 20-25% of their revenue from fees and charges. As long as the banks have their customers as cash (fee) cows, I don't think we'll ever see any changes for the better; make the grossly overpaid executives who botch up the operations fiscally responsible for their actions and let's see if they might suddenly be less inclined to gamble the "house money"...

[CaptainHaplo]

I work for a competing bank - one that has grown significantly in the last couple of years into major market areas where BoA once was THE game in town. There are a number of other banks looking to hire these folks. The vast majority will be with another financial institution very soon.