ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- The 350 employees of JP Morgan Chase expected to be out of work sometime this fall are employed in the mortgage banking department at the Chase Tower in downtown Rochester.
This appears to be a continuation of the 18,000 jobs nationwide the financial firm cut from the same department last year.
The good news is Chase is not pulling all of its employees from downtown's third largest building.
"I did speak with the leadership over at Chase and they explained the rationale why they're making this decision," said Bob Duffy, Rochester Business Alliance. "It's an economic one and the market has changed. The folks that were doing jobs with foreclosures and what have you, they're not needed as much."
According to J.P. Morgan Chase, some of those losing their jobs here will be offered positions in other cities. The rest will have access to career services.
Rochester survived massive cuts at Kodak and that company's emergence from bankruptcy. City leaders are confident the area will also rebound from these latest job losses.
"We are a community that knows how to revitalize itself and we see a resurgence coming in downtown Rochester and we'll be able to help these employees get different employment at other places by working with our community partners like RochesterWorks and Operation Transformation Rochester," said Mayor Lovely Warren, D-Rochester.
George Conboy of Brighton Securities said that the jobs being eliminated at Chase will not be easily integrated back into the Rochester banking industry. He does believe they'll be able to transition to different fields.
"350's a pretty big hit for a town our size, but our economy is diverse enough and robust enough that many of those people are likely to find meaningful work in a reasonable time."
In 2009, J.P. Morgan Chase added 250 local jobs to help restructure mortgages.
A formal announcement on the pending layoffs is expected by spring.