3 areas hit in Merc cuts

The Baltimore Sun

PNC Financial Services Group's layoffs in Maryland resulting from its acquisition of Mercantile Bankshares Corp. will hit Linthicum, Baltimore City and Frederick the hardest, according to notices the company filed with the state labor department.

PNC notified nearly 900 Mercantile employees in Maryland and surrounding states that their positions are being eliminated. Company officials have declined to say exactly how many employees will lose their jobs because some employees might leave on their own and others might move to other positions.

PNC, which has its headquarters in Pittsburgh, has 200 job openings in Maryland and more in other states.

Roughly a third of the layoffs, or 323, are in Linthicum, where Mercantile had an operations center that handled transaction processing.

Another 80 employees received layoff notices in Baltimore City, where Mercantile was headquartered, and 51 got them in Frederick, according to the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

PNC completed in March its $6 billion acquisition of Mercantile, which was the largest bank with its headquarters in Maryland.

But efforts to bring Mercantile's operations under the PNC umbrella are expected to continue through September.

The changeover includes not only eliminating redundant jobs but replacing Mercantile signage with PNC's logo and converting computer systems.

Mercantile employees were given at least two months before they have to leave. PNC spokesman Fred Solomon said the company has worked to help employees find other work.

"We have done everything appropriate to make it easier for people," Solomon said.

"We have talked to them about their future. We have talked to them about outplacement assistance whenever possible, and we hope as many people as possible will redeploy within PNC."

Companies are required by federal law to provide workers with 60 days' notice of plant closings and mass layoffs, and to notify state and local governments.

The requirements vary with circumstances, but in some situations, more than 50 employees must be affected to trigger notification under the law. So smaller numbers of Mercantile employees might have been laid off in other parts of the state and PNC would not have to report them.

laura.smitherman@baltsun.com

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