Janus staff is facing more bad news today as the firm cut another 546 positions in its shareholder servicing and operations units, 400 of which will take place in Austin, Texas where the firm is closing a call center.

Of the 546 former employees, approximately 50 will be offered comparable positions in the Denver office. Others will receive a severance package between three and six months salary, as well as health benefits for up to one year. An additional relocation package will be available to employees sent to Austin from Denver.

Citing the statistics that 62 percent of investor contacts occur on the Janus Web site and 20% of new accounts are opened online, a Janus spokesperson admitted that significant cost-savings will result from the decision, but the main intent was to reap their technology investments. The fifth-largest fund complex by assets under management, Janus invested $100 million in technological infrastructure in the last year, of which $65 million was invested in Web site functionality.

Janus executives chose to shutter the Austin call center since the site originally functioned as a backup facility to the Denver call center. However, a new backup facility in Denver was opened, creating a redundancy. Additionally, 62 percent of investor contacts occur on their Web site and 20 percent of new accounts are opened online.

This is the second cutback in recent months as Janus eliminated 468 jobs in February. It also recently cut 45 trainers for its callers.

The cuts come as financial services firms are finding that more of their shareholders are using the Web rather than telephone reps to gather basic information about their accounts. Janus is not alone in seeing slackening demand for telephone support, coupled with a falloff in assets under management. Look for more cuts like these from other firms.

 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE