Fleet job cuts reach 1,400 in the state

Bank of America Corp. has cut about 1,400 employees in Massachusetts in its merger with FleetBoston Financial Corp., about half of its total job loss in New England, the bank has told elected officials.

The Massachusetts layoffs are double the number the bank had previously disclosed. Bank of America chief executive Kenneth D. Lewis and several other top executives told The Boston Globe in September the bank had cut 700 Massachusetts jobs in its merger with Fleet. But by December, those layoffs had increased to about 1,400, Bank of America said in response to a questionnaire from US Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, and the House Financial Services Committee.

Frank and the committee met in Boston to hear testimony about employment issues raised by the Fleet merger. The Massachusetts layoff numbers were not reported publicly in the media at the time of the hearing. The Globe obtained a copy of the questionnaire yesterday after its existence was first reported by the Boston Business Journal.

In its merger with Fleet, Bank of America has pledged to maintain the same number of employees in New England -- about 17,900 -- as Fleet had before the deal. Already, Bank of America has revealed plans to create about 1,100 new jobs, including about 400 executives in its Global Wealth and Investment Management division, which is headquartered in Boston, and 700 jobs in a call center in Rhode Island.

Bank of America's president of the Northeast, Anne Finucane, said the bank plans to create 1,800 new jobs in New England over the next two years and will fulfill its employment commitment by 2006. She has said the bank has finished the bulk of merger-related layoffs.

''We've committed to returning to premerger levels of employment," she said.

Finucane also said the bank's new Rhode Island call center is expected to employ some Massachusetts residents, and she estimated that about 600 of the 1,100 new jobs will go to people who live here.

Though Bank of America made the overall commitment to maintain employment in New England, it has never said it would keep the same number in each individual state. State Representative John Quinn, Democrat of Dartmouth, yesterday called on the bank to add as many jobs back here as it has cut.

''They should make a Massachusetts-specific commitment," he said. ''If the jobs are lost here, they've got to put them back here."

A Bank of America spokeswoman, Alex Liftman, said the bank's commitment to bring its wealth management executives to Boston will mean substantial gains for Massachusetts.

''We feel we're on a nice trajectory in Massachusetts," she said. ''Going forward, we'll look to create employment opportunities to respond to the expanding needs of our customers."

At the same time as Bank of America adds jobs to New England, it has signed outsourcing contracts with third-party companies, such as State Street Corp. and Fidelity Investments, to handle some work, creating several hundred jobs between those companies. Bank of America chief executive Lewis has previously said the bank plans to count outsourced jobs toward its total New England employment because its contracts created them. But some elected officials have criticized that notion, saying that the bank should not count workers at other companies as Bank of America employees.

''That doesn't pass the smell test," said Quinn, who has been critical of Bank of America over the last year. ''Are they going to outsource the cleaning of the branches, then say, 'Oh those are really Bank of America jobs, even though they work for ABC cleaning? Where do they draw the line?"

In the questionnaire submitted to congressional officials, Bank of America did not use the number 1,400 in reference to its Massachusetts layoffs. Instead, it said that it had cut 2,900 jobs throughout New England, with about half of those cuts in Massachusetts. Finucane confirmed yesterday the bank had cut about 1,400 jobs in Massachusetts.

The job losses were so high in Massachusetts because Fleet had been headquartered in Boston. During mergers, banks tend to cut overlapping jobs, such as human resources, finance and marketing. The two other New England states with substantial Fleet operations, which likely suffered heavy cuts in the merger, are Rhode Island and Connecticut.

New Hampshire and Maine had much smaller numbers of Fleet employees.

Bank of America's answers to the questionnaire did not disclose layoffs in Connecticut or Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, George Burke, special projects manager for the state's Department of Labor and Training, said the bank has alerted him of about 50 new layoffs this month.

So far, he said, he is aware of about 110 Bank of America layoffs in his state, though it gained hundreds of Bank of America jobs over that same period because of the bank's new call center.

Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com.