WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve will eliminate 1,740 jobs over the next four years as it consolidates check-processing operations at four regional sites, in Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas and Philadelphia, according to Bloomberg News.
Fourteen offices will be affected, said David Fettig, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where 210 jobs will be eliminated. Also losing at least 100 jobs are Baltimore, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Charlotte, N.C., Utica, N.Y., and Windsor Locks, Conn. Losing fewer jobs will be offices in Memphis, Seattle, Denver, Jacksonville, Fla., Des Moines and St. Louis.
Some of the jobs will be pared through attrition and retirement, Fettig said. The cuts – 8 percent of the Fed’s total work force, Bloomberg News said – come in response to a decline in check-writing by U.S. consumers, which had fallen to 37 billion checks per year in 2003 from 50 billion in 1995, according to the latest Fed reports.
The Fed’s 12 district banks – formed in 1913 – help the central bank to supervise commercial banks and process checks, as well as reporting on regional business conditions.
The presidents of the district banks – along with other Fed officials – also serve on the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee. The FOMC is meeting today and tomorrow in Washington, D.C., to decide whether to raise interest rates.
Additional information about the Federal Reserve, its 12 regional banks and the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) can be found at www.federalreserve.gov.
