Wells Fargo cuts 700 mortgage jobs

Wells Fargo cuts 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages declines.
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Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Minneapolis.

Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that it is cutting 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages continues to shrink.

The San Francisco-based bank said it notified affected employees Wednesday, and that almost all of them work at the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage campus in south Minneapolis. Some work elsewhere in the Twin Cities.

The cuts follow scattered layoffs in the Twin Cities in January in which Wells Fargo laid off fewer than 30 mortgage-related workers.

“We currently expect mortgage origination volumes to decline in first quarter 2014, reflecting seasonality in the purchase market and lower [refinancing] volumes,” bank spokeswoman Peggy Gunn said in an e-mailed statement.

Gunn said the layoffs have no effect on the bank’s decision to move part of its local workforce into the Ryan Cos. development near where the Vikings stadium is being built.

Wells Fargo is the largest bank in Minnesota, where it employs more than 20,000 people. About 8,000 of them work in its mortgage operation that has offices around the Twin Cities, including its large campus in south Minneapolis. The bank is a dominant mortgage lender and rode high as the boom in refinancing mortgages to lower rates generated big profits. It’s working to grow other parts of its operation as its home loan activity drops. Last fall it cut 5,300 full-time jobs in mortgage production across the country.