This Is Causing Bank Of America (NYSE: BAC) To Slash 8,000 Jobs

Mobile banking has made our lives a lot easier but it has also created a huge issue for banks. With the widespread use of mobile banking, fewer transactions are needed to be done in branches.

According to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Bank of America has closed nearly 1,200 of the bank’s offices since the end of 2010 and this number is going to get a lot larger.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Financials Conference Tuesday, Thong Nguyen, BofA’s president of retail banking, said headcount for BofA’s retail banking business had fallen from over 108,000 in 2009 to about 68,400.

He also said the headcount in the division was likely to continue to fall to the “low 60,000s,” which means thousands of more BofA retail employees will soon find themselves out of work.

Bank of America has shrunk its branch network to 4,700 today from 6,100. Headcount has also decreased in the consumer bank to 68,000 from 100,000 a few years ago.

Nguyen has said the bank will continue to reduce the number of employees “related to transactions,” and hire more sales people.

“Just to give you an idea, the salespeople used to be 5 percent of our employee base,” Nguyen said. “Today, it’s 30 percent. So out of 68,000, think of that as a third of salespeople deployed in the financial centers and the contact centers.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) and have not been compensated for this article.