Washington Mutual Inc. will cut another 140 positions at its Chatsworth campus, part of a new round of layoffs that will affect a total of 900 workers at the bank. The cuts bring to about 1,240 the total number of jobs slashed in the bank’s regional San Fernando Valley headquarters since January. The most recent round of layoffs come from WaMu’s retail banking and home loan group, with the Valley cuts involving back-office functions related to the retail banking operation. Like the call-center layoffs earlier this year, the job functions will move to San Antonio, Tex. Despite the recent moves, WaMu officials said that there are no plans to eliminate the Chatsworth operation. “Southern California is Washington Mutual’s largest single market and it remains important to have some support functions located close to the field,” said Tim McGarry, a spokesman for the bank. “So for that reason we will maintain a substantial presence in Chatsworth for the foreseeable future.” Following the cuts, about 2,400 employees will remain at the Chatsworth facility. Seattle-based WaMu has eliminated nearly 4,000 jobs bank-wide since the beginning of the year in a cost-cutting effort designed to significantly reduce the company’s non-interest expense-to-revenue ratio. The bank’s goal is to bring its expense to revenue ratio to less than $0.50 on the dollar. As of March 31, it stood at $0.57. “So we still have a ways to go,” McGarry said. Additionally, like many others, WaMu is closely monitoring the home mortgage market to keep expenses in line with the business trends in that sector. A portion of the 900 job cuts just announced involve residential appraisal work, which the savings and loan said it would outsource to two domestic companies. The bank also expects to move about 40 of its retail banking jobs to overseas companies. WaMu’s offshoring efforts are expected to grow to 6,000 jobs by the end of 2007. The company outsources to India, Manilla and Costa Rica.
