Here come the cuts

With Bank of America just days away from owning Countrywide Financial (those lucky devils), we now know that 7,500 positions will be eliminated over the next two years. No details were offered, other than the cuts will come from areas "where the two companies have significant overlap such as staff support." Typically in these matters the company being acquired gets the worst of it, though Calabasas-based Countrywide has already cut 11,000 spots since the middle of 2007 (many of them in other parts of the country). Also keep in mind that 7,500 positions represent less than 3 percent of the combined workforces (Countrywide employed 50,000 people at the end of the first quarter and Bank of America had a staff of 209,000). Pink slips will be going out sometime this summer, and there will be the usual severance packages for those eligible. Here's the release and the Reuters story.