MetLife (MET) filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act Monday to lay off a total of 804 employees at two Dallas-area locations as it shuts down its forward mortgage origination operation.
The layoffs, which affect employees at both of MetLife’s Irving, Texas offices, will begin on March 30, and will be “substantially complete” by May 31, said the notification letter filed by Lynn DiStassio, vice president of Metlife to the Texas Workforce Commission and the Irving mayor’s office.
The letter indicated that more employees would be laid off later this year, “although the schedules for such additional separations have not been finalized.”
Metlife, the nation’s largest life insurer, announced that it would be shutting down its mortgage origination business last month. They began the section in 2008, around the time the housing bubble burst.
The company announced in a statement on their website that, while they will no longer accept new loan applications for forward mortgages, they will continue to originate reverse mortgages.
The statement also said the company would continue to service its current mortgage customers and will honor all contractual commitments for loans in process, and expects the majority of loans to close within 90 days.
