JPMorgan laying off hundreds in mortgage business – Bloomberg News

A view of the exterior of the JP Morgan Chase & Co. corporate headquarters in New York City May 20, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

June 22 (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) is laying off hundreds of employees in its home-lending business and reassigning hundreds more this week, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

More than 1,000 employees will be affected, the report said, and about half of them will be moved to different divisions with the bank.

“Our staffing decision this week was a result of cyclical changes in the mortgage market,” a spokesperson for the bank said.

JPMorgan has 273,948 employees worldwide, according to its latest quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“We were able to proactively move many impacted employees to new roles within the firm and are working to help the remaining affected employees find new employment within Chase and externally,” the spokesperson added.

Last week, the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, the largest increase since 1994, after official data just a few days earlier showed inflation rose despite expectations it had peaked.

Real estate brokers Compass Inc (COMP.N) and Redfin Corp (RDFN.O) also said last week they would cut jobs as homebuying demand was slowing due to rising mortgage rates and surging inflation.

In May, U.S. existing home sales tumbled to a two-year low as median house prices jumped to a record high – topping the $400,000 mark for the first time. read more

Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli

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