65 employees affected in move to AZ
By COCO SALAZAR
8/19/2005

Countrywide Financial Corp.'s migration east will impact 65 California employees at its subprime unit -- all who were offered jobs in the Grand Canyon State.

Full Spectrum Lending is consolidating operations in the Far West and, as a result, will eliminate the underwriting department at its Rosemead, Calif. facility at the end of August to expand it in Chandler, Ariz., Countrywide spokesman Rick Simon said in an e-mailed statement.

The 65 employees, consisting of underwriters and loan funders, have known about the move for about two and a half months. The individuals were offered the opportunity to relocate to Chandler in their current positions or apply for transfers within the company.

Fourteen of the affected employees opted for relocation packages to Chandler, 29 will be housed in other Countrywide departments within California and another 10 have transfer approvals pending, Simon said.

Eleven chose to resign and one decided to go through a reduction-in-force layoff, according to the statement.

"Certainly, the company is not reducing jobs by any means," Simon said. "We're still growing at 20 percent a year."

He further noted the Calabasas, Calif.-based lender has added about 7,000 or 16% to its workforce since the first of the year.

Full Spectrum decided on consolidation in Arizona to alleviate overcrowding in the Rosemead facility, which currently houses about 100 more employees than its manageable capacity of 1,100, the spokesman said.

A second reason for doing so was to continue focus of central facility expansion outside of California and into the more business-friendly climates of Arizona and Texas, where Countrywide has acquired a considerable amount of space to accommodate its rapid growth, he added.

The Chandler operation, which currently has more than 900 employees, will fill as necessary the 51 subprime funding and underwriting positions left open by the transfers, resignations and single layoff.

And many more will be added, according to Simon. The 900 plus currently fully fill two buildings at the Chandler site, but five more buildings await construction and completion, which will expand capacity to a total of 4,000.

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