Although cooling in the housing market may not have reached Seattle just yet, some of its effects are being felt here:
Responding to the cooling housing market, Washington Mutual Inc., the largest U.S. savings and loan, said on Wednesday that it was laying off 2,500 support employees in its mortgage unit.
The Seattle, Washington-based company said it was also reducing the number of mortgage processing offices to 16 from 26 and sending some of the work to “lower cost domestic and offshore locations.”
I don’t think this would be a good time to be in the mortgage or realty business, as far as job security is concerned.
(Wire Service, Reuters, 02.15.2006)
(Associated Press, via Forbes, 02.15.2006)