On both sides of the Atlantic, bankers are hearing a loud, repetitive noise: chop, chop, chop. The latest headcount reduction comes courtesy of JPMorgan. It looks dramatic: 17,000 jobs, or 6.5 per cent of the bank’s staff at the end 2012. Most of that – 13,000 to 15,000 bodies and about $3bn of savings – will be in mortgage banking, largely staff that have been busy resolving the heaps of troubled mortgages that piled up after the US housing bust. Several years on, that pile is diminishing. JPMorgan’s inventory of loans to borrowers seeking modifications, for example, fell 27 per cent last year.
在大西洋的两岸，银行家们都听到一个响亮的声音不断重复着：裁员！裁员！裁员！摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)是最新一家宣布裁员的银行。该行此次裁员看起来规模很大：共裁减1.7万个工作岗位，占其2012年末员工总数的6.5%。绝大多数被裁岗位来自抵押贷款业务部门——裁员1.3万至1.5万人，可节省约30亿美元。这些员工之前主要负责处理美国房地产泡沫破裂后出现的大量问题抵押贷款。如今金融危机已经过去了好几年，问题贷款规模日渐缩小。例如，借款人寻求修订抵押贷款条款的贷款存量去年下降了27%。