One of America's biggest banks is closing branches—but hiring tellers
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is still shutting down branches — which makes it a lot like most banks these days. Where it's different is that it's still adding tellers and other branch workers.
The bank, which topped Wall Street expectations Thursday on the top and bottom line , is adding tellers, tech staff and commercial bankers, JPMorgan CFO Marianne Lake said on the company's earnings call. While the addition of technology workers at JPMorgan is nothing new, taking on more staff in other areas represents a reversal of a trend that's been going on not just there, but across the industry.
Head count rose by 1 percent in the quarter from a year earlier, to more than 240,000 staffers. Compensation expenses increased slightly as well, the bank said. CEO Jamie Dimon announced earlier this week that 18,000 of JPMorgan's lower-tier employees will get pay increases from $12 an hour to $16.50 an hour, depending on factors like geography and the markets where they work.
Even as it has been hiring, however, the total number of branches run by the bank declined by 3 percent in the quarter, compared with a year earlier. It fell by 1 percent quarter to quarter. JPMorgan now runs 5,366 branches, according to the earnings report.
The hiring trend is relatively new, and good news for people who work in the industry, where head count has been trimmed by most banks in recent quarters (including JPMorgan) as big institutions cut back on staff to offset challenges to profitability. Many banks have scaled back on either the size of branches , or the number of branches, as they confront the rising trend of consumers banking less in person and more via smartphone.
The CEO of JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank, Daniel Pinto, hinted at the reversal of the hiring trend last month, when he said hiring is "coming to the end of a cycle of contraction."
In an op-ed in The New York Times on Tuesday announcing the pay increases, Dimon said the move is "the right thing to do."
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