JPMorgan to cut 4,000 jobs this year

NEW YORK -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Tuesday it would cut about 4,000 jobs as it pares expenses by $1 billion this year.

The nation’s largest bank by assets becomes the latest Wall Street powerhouse to announce that it would reduce its headcount as financial firms issue pink slips to thousands of employees.

[Updated, 12:34 p.m. Feb. 26: JPMorgan said it would cut a total of 17,000 jobs by end of 2014. That figure includes the 4,000 net cuts planned this year, plus 13,000 more in 2014.]

The bank said the 4,000 job cuts would come through layoffs and attrition.

Major Wall Street firms have been shedding jobs as they adjust to new regulations following the financial crisis and as banking has become less profitable.

Banks have cut employees to maintain profits. JPMorgan, for example, increased its number of branches by 2% to 5,614 in 2012, compared with the previous year. At the same time, it cut branch employees by 5%.

The bank said it would continue reducing employee ranks in consumer banking and would eliminate 9,000 branch jobs by 2015 through attrition as consumers increasingly make deposits online and without the help of tellers.

The cuts announced Tuesday amount to 1.5% of the 258,965 employees the firm had at the end of 2012.

The New York company shrank its employee ranks by 0.5% from 2011 to 2012. JPMorgan had added nearly 20,000 positions since 2010, as it opened bank branches and expanded its consumer and commercial banking businesses.

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