Florida Mortgage Company Announces Cuts

More than 220 employees of a Florida mortgage lender in Sunrise will lose their jobs by the end of this year, the Miami Herald reports.

Since Citigroup bought ABN AMRO Mortgage Group in a deal that closed March 1, the financial services company has been merging operations with its Florida mortgage division, CitiMortgage.

The cuts eliminate duplicate services, CitiMortgage’s spokesman Mark Rodgers said Wednesday.

The layoffs come in the middle of a slow housing market, a growing scandal over bad credit mortgages and an announcement that Citigroup will eliminate 17,000 jobs worldwide.

But Rodgers said the layoffs are not connected to the firm’s eliminations or to the declining Florida housing market and bad credit mortgage climate.

Citigroup announced the closing of the Sunrise mortgage site on April 12, and employees received notification via letters last week.

Offices in Boca Raton and Jacksonville also are set to close, rounds of cuts which will affect another 565 Florida workers.

Nationwide, CitiMortgage has about 8,700 employees, plus 2,500 working under ABN AMRO Mortgage Group’s Florida home loan operations.

Jobs at the Sunrise site primarily are in direct sales, telephone customer-service support and support for ABN AMRO Mortgage Group’s website.

Rodgers said that the Florida mortgage lender is encouraging employees to apply for positions at other Sunshine State operations.

Employees also may get help from Broward County’s WorkForce One, which provides free human resource services to employers and job seekers.

SOURCE: Miami Herald