Feds give CA millions to assist laid off mortgage industry workers

Do you think these people should have seen this coming? Do you think assisting highly-paid workers like these is an appropriate use of our federal tax dollars? I don't know. Just asking.

I wonder how much of this kind of thing California, and other places, can absorb. They had the big shakedown in the dot com and IT industry which is probably still going on to a certain extent. A friend of mine attended bartending school five or six years ago out there and said all his classmates were people who had formerly been making 60,000 salaries in software development type jobs.

Now this real estate fiasco, which seemed like an no brainer to me that it was doomed, yanking what's left of the rug out from under the economy there?


Mortgage industry job help

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 21, 2008


More than 100 laid-off workers from the mortgage industry packed into a Pleasant Hill classroom on Wednesday to hear advice about finding new jobs. In many cases, that may mean switching to new professions.

"You are all here because your jobs are no longer there," said Marian Woodward, a principal with Quantum Business, one of half a dozen speakers offering tips and inspiration at the free workshop sponsored by the Workforce Development Board of Contra Costa County at JFK University. "You are undergoing a great amount of change."

Change - or, rather, wrenching upheaval - is tearing through the mortgage and finance industry as the housing slump worsens. Nationwide, financial firms shed more than 150,000 jobs in 2007, according to Chicago outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. The pace already accelerated this year, with 15,000 finance-related layoffs in January, the firm said.

In the Bay Area, many job cuts were at East Bay offices of lenders who tightened their belts or sometimes shut their doors.

"It's a shock when it happens to you," said Debra Miles of Oakley, who worked as a mortgage customer relationship specialist. She was laid off two times in 2007 - first from Wells Fargo's subprime lending division, then a few months later from Zino Financial, a Concord firm that went out of business.

Despite the long hours and high stress, she misses the field, Miles said. Her career goals now are simple: a full-time position with benefits.

"When you apply for a job, you find 400 other applicants," she said.

Tracey Brown-Carter, business and economic development coordinator for the Workforce Development Board of Contra Costa County, said that between 1,000 and 1,600 East Bay mortgage workers were axed in 2007, accounting for about 85 percent of local layoffs. "We consider this to be an emergency," she said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Labor said it would give California $5.5 million to help displaced mortgage workers. Alameda, Contra Costa and Sonoma are among eight counties that will receive the funds.

One big challenge faced by laid-off mortgage workers is salary cuts, Brown-Carter said. The workers had positions such as loan processor, closer, funder and pricing specialist, averaging about $25 an hour, she said. Loan officers, who received commissions, often pulled in six-figure salaries.

Making that kind of money is no longer feasible for many, she said. The mortgage industry is continuing to shrink, so the workers will need to apply their skills to other jobs, such as bill collectors, bookkeepers and financial analysts.

"They're used to living a certain lifestyle, collecting a certain wage; now they have to make that shift to the income they can command," Brown-Carter said.

Some workers at the event said they were open to entirely new fields.

Dorian Thibeaux of Martinez, who lost his job as a loan processor with Irwin Home Equity of San Ramon after seven years, said he would like to switch to a trade job, such as plumber, electrician or oil refinery worker.

"I want to get in something more secure with a union," he said.

Susan Jordan of Concord, who was laid off as an escrow assistant by Old Republic, has accepted a new job as a mental health worker at a residential facility, although it means her salary will be cut in half.

Many laid-off workers were already enrolled in training courses to learn new skills.

Sheryle Nebeker of Antioch, who was laid off in December 2006 from her job as a funding supervisor at Own-It Mortgage in Concord, said she was brushing up on Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint with classes paid for by the Workforce Investment Act.

"I've been in the (mortgage) business so long, over 20 years, that my computer skills were limited because you do the same thing every day," she said.

"Most of us are women in our 40s and older," Nebeker said, motioning around the room. "We have to compete with younger individuals."

Workers at the event said they witnessed the lending excesses that helped fuel the current subprime implosion, but most said their own jobs were more involved with processing paperwork than pushing loans on people who could not afford them.

"I saw a lot of young people get into the business because they heard there was money to be made there," said Peggy Green of Oakland, who was laid off in November from First California Mortgage of Petaluma, for which she conducted training seminars for mortgage brokers.

"Those people were there to make money at all costs. Unfortunately, some of them were the bad ones we hear so much about now."

After 15 years in the industry, Green said, now she is leaning toward job hunting in a different area. "It's so negative in the mortgage industry now," she said. "It's like 'who went out of business today?' If I could stand on my feet that long, I would become a grocery store cashier."
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