‘Sign of proactive leadership’: Ally Bank layoffs could impact Charlotte workers

“Despite a challenging macro environment, we remain relentlessly focused on serving our customers and all stakeholders by making the tough yet necessary decisions to guide our business into the future.

After taking steps over the past year to pause hiring and manage staffing expenses through natural attrition, we have made the difficult choice to selectively reduce our workforce.

We are deeply committed to supporting those affected and are offering a robust severance package and career out-placement support.

We will continue to hire in other critical areas of our business, and those impacted will have the opportunity to apply for openings.

We remain confident in our long-term strategy, with a strong balance sheet and nimble, scalable businesses that are poised for future growth.”

Peter Gwaltney, President and CEO of the North Carolina Bankers Association, says nationwide layoffs didn’t come as a surprise.

“Nobody likes layoffs,” Gwaltney said. “It’s unfortunate for the individuals who are impacted. The banks don’t want to do this. Other companies don’t want to do it, but it is just sometimes required by the economic circumstances around the companies so it can remain profitable.”

In the past 18 months, the Federal Reserve has increased interest rates by five percent – slowing lending activity and dampening bank profits.

“Banks have only a handful of ways to remain profitable,” Gwaltney said. “They can increase revenue, or they can decrease expenses, and unfortunately, layoffs and reorganization and rightsizing is one way to get there.”

According to the N.C. Bankers Association, there are approximately 90,000 bank workers in N.C. Gwaltney says the financial sector is the state’s number one source of corporate revenue tax.

“I want everybody to hear me loud and clear – North Carolina banks are highly capitalized, liquid, and very strong,” Gwaltney elaborated. “This is not a sign of weakness. This is a sign of proactive leadership making hard decisions and honoring their commitments to both the community because they have to be profitable to remain a business and to be strong and then also to their shareholders.”

“Wells Fargo continues to bring employees in non-customer facing roles together and to improve and modernize our workspaces. 

This will strengthen our customer-centric culture, collaboration, strong risk management, and innovation.

We will offer support to impacted employees, such as severance and career counseling.“