That’s a nicer way of saying that the employees from about 650 branches are going to be out of work.

No sooner has he maintained that he was forced to by Merril Lynch, Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis told investors last week he is planning to shrink the company’s 6,100-branch network by about 10%, a pullback from the two-decade expansion that took the bank from coast to coast.

While it’s always premature to announce how many locations will close, the reasons are to save money because many people are doing their banking on line.  Of course, there are fewer doing any banking at all, on line or in line – so close the branches, Ken.

Assuming the branch average employee count is 30, that’s about 20,000 employees.  Makes sense that at 1000 additional jobs will be lost in support services too.  So, BofA is killing off about 21,000 jobs – but, it’s a lot better to say 10% of its branches.

Glad to know that Ken is thinking about the people out there.  Instead of trees.