California-based nonbank mortgage lender Pennymac Financial Services will lay off 207 additional employees in June and July following a workforce reduction filing of more than 230 employees in March.
According to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices submitted to the Employment Development Department (EDD) on April 28 and May 9, the company plans to cut 207 jobs in two rounds on June 27 and July 8, in letters to the EDD reviewed by HousingWire.
Bumping rights do not exist for these positions and employees are not represented by a union, according to the WARN notices filed by the firm. Layoffs of 190 employees at Pennymac were first reported by National Mortgage News. However, Pennymac confirmed 207 employees will be permanently laid off in June and July, without providing details on the workforce reduction.
Pink slips will arrive for California employees at six offices in Thousand Oaks, Pasadena, Roseville, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills, and Moorpark. The latest round of WARN notices will impact 59 loan officers in the Thousand Oaks, Pasadena, and Roseville offices.
The office at Thousand Oaks accounted for the largest layoff notifications — of 97 employees, including 25 loan officers. Most of the other positions to be eliminated were analysts and managers in back office operations. Top management jobs, such as vice presidents for underwriting and partial credit guarantee (PCG) transaction management, will also be reduced, according to Stacy Diaz, executive vice president of human resources at PennyMac, in letters to the EDD.
In the Moorpark office, the firm will eliminate 52 positions, including 14 loan officers. That location will also let go of its vice president for servicing.
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Other layoffs include 35 in the Pasadena location, including 21 loan officers, 16 in Roseville, where 13 are loan officers, and 25 loan officers in Westlake Village. Pink slips will also arrive for two employees in Agoura Hills.
In March, Pennymac filed WARN notices to the EDD in California detailing plans to lay off 236 employees. A total of 96 positions were eliminated in two offices in Westlake Village where most of the people impacted were home loan specialists. The Roseville office laid off 81 positions, while Pasadena lost 24, Agoura Hills lost 19, and Moorpark lost 16.
Pennymac reported a pretax income of $234.5 million in the first quarter this year, driven by its servicing portfolio and about $520 billion in unpaid principal balance.
In the beginning of the year, Pennymac said it aimed to boost its consumer direct lending business. The company announced it was investing $3.9 million to open a new mortgage origination center in Franklin, Tennessee, in January to enhance Pennymac’s operations coast-to-coast “while supporting the organization’s overall growth initiative,” said Doug Jones, president and chief mortgage banking officer at Pennymac.
Among its multi-channel production business, Pennymac’s consumer direct market rose to 1.7% this year from 1.6%, according to Jones. In the first-quarter earnings call with analysts, Jones said he expected the company to grow market share in that channel as it leverages “servicing portfolio, new technology and advanced data analytics capabilitie.”
The correspondent channel had the largest market share across Pennymac’s business at 15.8% in the first quarter. Loan servicing followed at 4.1% and broker direct channel trailed at 2.2%.
Mortgage lenders are rushing to cut costs amid surging mortgage rates and a sharp decline in refis and mortgage originations. Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. is the latest lender to lay off staff across the country. While Fairway did not provide any comment, a dozen former employees told HousingWire they were let go through phone calls from their supervisors during the second week of May.
Other lenders, including Owning Corp., Interfirst, Mr. Cooper, and Wells Fargo, also turned to layoffs while some firms, such as Rocket, offered a voluntary buyout to some of their staff.
