The finance industry continues to suffer losses and as a result, it seems that some forecasting has shown it’s time to trim the fat where it can still be trimmed.

JPMorgan Chase on Tuesday said it plans to transfer 420 customer-service jobs from the Valley to locations outside Arizona as part of an ongoing workforce-efficiency drive.

Affected workers will be eligible for other jobs with Chase, which has 475 openings in Arizona in retail financial services and other areas. Those who don’t land new jobs with the company will receive severance packages.

Chase, the largest bank operating in Arizona based on deposits, counts about 9,000 workers in the state.

Mary Jane Rogers, a Chase spokeswoman, said the transfers don’t stem from weakness in any particular business unit.

“We’re continually reviewing our business priorities looking for efficiency,” she said. Chase plans to transfer the jobs to Texas, Ohio, the Philippines, Missouri and Michigan - places where she said Chase has lower operating costs and excess capacity.

Chase plans to transfer the positions gradually through year-end and will give 60-day notices to affected workers, most of whom handle telephone calls from customers and perform account-maintenance and research work. The affected employees are among 2,000 workers at a Chase facility near Sky Harbor International Airport.

Efficiency. The most beautiful and horrible word all at once - depending on which side of it you’re on.

There were some colorful comments that seemed to hint at some more reasons behind this:

It’s hard to believe that Chase will have lower operating costs anywhere in the US. Arizona wages are so low, it must be almost the bottom. So I guess most of these jobs will go to the Philippines.

This is a hard blow to Arizona which needs these low level jobs urgently because of our failing schools turning out so many people who are not qualified for anything better.

“ongoing workforce-efficiency drive” in plain American English=kiss your jobs goodbye. Chase will pay $1.25 per day to Makmoud in the Philippines and put the labor cost savings in the executive’s year end bonus. Chase would hire illegal aliens for cheap if they could, at least the paychecks would stay in the Arizona economy.

YEAH MY SISTER IN LAW THAT WAS WORKING FOR CHASE SHE TOLD ME TODAY THAT THEY GOT NOTIFY THAT THEY WILL BE GETTING LAID OFF. SO NOW CHASE IS GETTING READY TO GO TO THE PHILLIPPINES AND INDIA. SO NOW WHEN PEOPLE CALL CHASE WE ARE HARDLY GOING TO UNDERSTAND IN WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE SAYING. THANKS FOR NOTHING CHASE! SELL OUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s called capitalism. Selling out is a key component. Chase axed the entire fitness center and staff at their building on University and Mill Ave in Tempe. I hear from a friend who is privy to inside info that job cuts will role out at that same Tempe location next month!

Chase has just lost my business. I will be closing my account by End of week. I was already upset with Chase and their poor customer service, but this just shows that I do not need to put my money into an organization that won’t support the local economy. Desert Schools… HERE I COME…

What part of capitalism don’t people understand?
The robber-barons that control the U.S. would kill half the working class if it added 2 cents per share to their dividend.

Carnegie once said about the poor “No problem with the poor. We can always hire half of them to kill the other half.”

Only a fool banks at a bank when a credit union is available.

I’ve worked at Chase over two years and they have been actively outsourcing IT jobs the entire time I’ve been there. There are now more IT employees in Bangalore than there are here in Phoenix. I have suffered through two years of dealing with incompetent bumbling Indians who have taken American jobs who can just barely speak English and have zero respect for America.

Wake up AZ this is the wave of the future in corporate America and Chase is no different. The name of the game is cut costs by offshoring every job you can and use the goodwill you generate in those third-world countries to get more business from them.

Oh, great! Now folks in the Phillippines will have access to my financial dealings. Why not! We’re global, eh! That’s why it’s so darned funny that we’re actually building a wall–a wall!!–along our southwestern borders. Absolutely nothing is restricted to the USA any longer. I understand that our passports–our passports!!–are done in Thailand or somewhere like that. As if no one in a Southeatern Asian country might like to immigrate to the U.S. So, where, might I ask, are we actually practicing “homeland security”? What a joke!

Time to start outsourcing our cash to different venues. It’s time to FORCE the banks to reveal a couple of things:

1. Who thier owners are…. BOFA (Bank owned [by] Foriegn (inappropriate term)) is owned by the Arabs, Bank One the same can be said.
2. Where thier main areas of employment are… Thanks to Bill Gates and the dumbing down of America more and more HB1 will be maintained, more foriegn workers.
3. Make them absolutely prove they will leave 99% of thier base operations in the USA.

And stop the administration and congress from letting these f’ing corporations write thier own ticket. If the idiots that call themselves congress can’t write bills to protect the American people them put them out on their asses. Concerning Bushes legacy, I really want the economy to fall flat on it’s ass while that B@$t@rd is still in office. His legacy will expose him and his ilk for the lying scum they are.

Chase sucks and is run by morons.

That aside, I think it’s funny when people direct their anger towards those in India. If someone was offering you a good job wouldn’t you take it?

We shouldn’t be mad at them rather we should be mad at corporate america.

Let’s face it, corporate america is sailing us down the river. Our main export now is jobs. This isn’t the fault of capitalism, it’s the fault of greed. That’s ok, their money won’t do them much good when all the poor people are trying to break into their house. Hitting someone with a hundred dollar bill doesn’t hurt too much. They’ll get theirs in the end but we’ll all get screwed along the way.

Be interesting to see how much this affects their bottom line once you factor in any resulting loss in customers.

Tags: Chase, Bank, lending, outsourcing, jobs, recession, depression, layoff