SOV | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Sovereign Bancorp Inc., whose sale to Banco Santander SA was completed in January, confirmed another round of layoffs yesterday.
This time, 950 jobs will be cut in the eight East Coast states in which Sovereign operates. In December, the company announced that it was cutting 1,000 jobs. It now has 10,700 employees.
Sovereign's more than 3,000 employees in Pennsylvania are receiving special treatment because of a shareholder lawsuit that opposed the Santander takeover. It gave Pennsylvania workers job protection until Jan. 31, 2010.
Ed Shultz, director of corporate communications for Sovereign, said 221 employees in Pennsylvania had been offered a voluntary separation package that would continue their pay and benefits until Jan. 31. He would not reveal details but said that was a better severance deal than laid-off employees in other states were getting.
Pennsylvania employees who decide not to take the deal can continue working until at least Jan. 31, Shultz said. He said he did not know how employees in other states would be affected if large numbers of Pennsylvania workers decline to leave voluntarily.
Shultz said the layoffs stemmed from general economic conditions, not the Santander takeover.
"In light of the current economic environment, Sovereign has indentified areas of savings within the company," he said. "Unfortunately that includes reductions in our workforce. ... Everyone's tightening their belts and looking at ways to identify areas of savings."
Sovereign is based in Wyomissing, outside Reading. Its corporate offices are in Boston. It has 900 employees in Philadelphia and its suburbs.
Shultz said the job losses would be spread throughout the organization geographically and across job titles. None of its more than 750 bank branches is slated to close.
He said the layoffs would not affect customer service.
Sovereign was forced to sell itself to Santander, which is based in Spain and was Sovereign's largest shareholder, after customers pulled $4.2 billion, or 9 percent, in deposits.
This article has information from Bloomberg News.
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