The Bank of Montreal announced Tuesday it would be laying off roughly 2,300 people as part of a cost-cutting drive after the bank earned $1.19 billion in its most recent quarter and raised its dividend. A drop in quarterly earnings — from $1.7 billion in the same quarter a year ago — was caused largely by a $357 million restructuring charge, mostly for severance payments. The cuts will affect about five per cent of Bank of Montreal’s workforce, executives said on a fiscal fourth-quarter conference call Tuesday. The reductions surpass Bank of Nova Scotia’s 1,500 job cuts, announced in 2014, and the 1,660 positions eliminated by Royal Bank of Canada in 2004. Earnings from Canadian personal-and-commercial banking, Bank of Montreal’s biggest business, rose 6.2 per cent to $716 million.

Source: thestar December 03, 2019 18:44 UTC