JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to close its offices in Garden City, New York, in December and lay off 195 employees, the company said in a state filing.
A number of other workers, who are involved in activities including mortgages, are being transferred to other Chase locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and elsewhere in the country, spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said.
Wexler said the 195 employees not transferring either couldn’t or wouldn’t move, but, she said, “we are working with affected, good-performing employees to try to find other jobs for them within the company or outside.”
The reason for the office closure is “economic,” the company stated in its notice to the state Department of Labor under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires businesses to give early warning of closings and layoffs.
Chase has been trying to reduce its physical space to reduce its costs.
Chase’s offices at 900 Stewart Ave. are scheduled to close Dec. 16, but Wexler said she believes there are other tenants in the building. The location’s owner, Onyx Equities of Woodbridge, New Jersey, didn’t immediately return a phone call.
In May 2014, Chase announced the layoffs of 155 employees in the same Garden City operation. Those cuts were scheduled to take place by July 31 of that year. A company spokeswoman said then that the layoffs reflected a general slowdown in the mortgage industry.
At the time, about 800 people worked at that Stewart Avenue location. Wexler said there probably are about 700 today.
Chase’s second-quarter mortgage-banking net income this year was $584 million, down 20 percent from a year earlier, according to an earnings announcement in April.
The six-story 900 Stewart Ave. building was constructed in 1984 as the regional headquarters building for Chase Manhattan Bank, a predecessor of JPMorgan Chase, Onyx Equities said on its website.
