Wells Fargo Layoffs Hit West Des Moines Again With 14 Job Cuts

A small notice in a long series

Wells Fargo has filed another layoff notice for its Jordan Creek campus in West Des Moines. This one covers 14 employees. On its own, the number is small. It matters because of what it adds to: a reduction in Iowa that has gone on for years, and a national cut in headcount that bank executives now link openly to artificial intelligence.

The bank filed the notice on Iowa's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) site on Tuesday, Aug. 18, and the job losses take effect Oct. 17.11 The Des Moines Register counted it as the 12th round of cuts since February. By the Register's count, Wells Fargo has announced 322 Des Moines-area layoffs in 2026.11 Since April 2022, WARN data show 1,619 jobs cut across 103 announced rounds in the metro, and the paper notes that attrition has cost many more positions.11

Wells Fargo did not say which divisions are affected or whether any of the 14 workers will be moved to other jobs inside the bank.11 That has been its pattern. In past rounds it gave the same statement: it reviews staffing to fit market conditions, tries to place affected employees elsewhere in the company, and offers severance and career counseling when it can't.1316

Cuts in small batches, every two weeks

The filings follow a regular rhythm. The bank does not announce one large layoff. It files small notices for the same address, 800 S. Jordan Creek Parkway, roughly every two weeks. The Aug. 18 notice for 14 workers came after a 7-person notice filed Aug. 4 and a 20-person notice filed July 22.5 More notices followed: 5 workers on Sept. 1 (effective Oct. 31) and 35 on Sept. 15 (effective Nov. 14).5 A 10-person notice filed Sept. 29 sets another round of separations for Nov. 28.10 A roundup of Iowa layoffs published this week lists all four upcoming Wells Fargo dates (Oct. 17, Oct. 31, Nov. 14 and Nov. 28) as still pending.15

The effect is that cuts reach the campus a few dozen people at a time. That is why each one makes local news and none of them makes national headlines. On a Des Moines forum discussing an earlier 14-person cut, one commenter argued that small layoffs at such a large employer only get noticed because they appear on the WARN log. Others replied that the constant churn is itself the problem.20 Both sides have a point. Any single filing is minor. Added together, they show a major employer steadily shrinking its local presence.

The pace is not letting up. In a 2026 filing tally that starts in late 2025, the Register's notices show cuts each month through the spring and summer: 43 jobs in a late-June notice14 and 29 in May19. Earlier in the year, local TV station WHO 13 had already counted 147 layoffs scheduled for 2026 by early February.16

The numbers don't always match

The outlets tracking these layoffs report different totals, mostly because they count differently. The Register describes 2026 as starting with a 49-person cut in February, which suggests it counts by announcement date.11 WHO 13 included earlier notices with January effective dates in its 2026 total.16 The 2025 figures also differ: the Register says 501 Des Moines workers were laid off last year11, while WHO 13 reported 461 from WARN filings.1618

National trackers that compile WARN filings disagree too. One site reports 23 Wells Fargo notices in 2026 covering 650 positions across five states, with Iowa accounting for most of them.1 Another reports 51 filings since October 2024 affecting 1,912 workers, including 920 in West Des Moines.5 A third counts 52 notices and 2,007 positions since 2024.10

The differences don't change the main conclusion, but they do show something important. WARN filings are a floor, not a full count. They capture only reductions large enough to trigger notice rules, and they leave out attrition, roles that go unfilled and voluntary departures. The Register says directly that attrition has taken many more jobs than the layoff notices show.11 Readers should treat any single figure as a minimum.

The national picture: AI is now named as a cause

Wells Fargo's own employee counts tell the bigger story. The bank ended June with 197,466 employees. It shed a net 7,732 positions in the first half of 2026 and more than 15,000 over the previous year, and its workforce has fallen for 24 straight quarters.46 When CEO Charlie Scharf arrived in 2019, the bank had about 275,000 employees, which means roughly 65,000 positions are gone.1119

The explanation from executives has changed. For years, the cuts were mainly described as an efficiency effort. Scharf told Reuters late last year that the bank was "way too bureaucratic" with too many processes that didn't add value.13 In the same interview he gave AI a central role, saying anyone who claims AI won't reduce headcount either doesn't understand it or isn't being honest.13 More recently, he told a Goldman Sachs investor conference that AI tools had made engineering teams about 30% to 35% more efficient, and that he expects overall headcount to shrink as the tools spread through the bank.2

CFO Mike Santomassimo went further at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference on Sept. 15. Asked about the workforce and AI, he said the technology would "bring headcount down more."4 One account of his remarks says he pointed to autonomous coding, operations and call centers as the areas facing pressure.6 On the same day, the bank filed the 35-person West Des Moines notice.4

The sources disagree on how closely to connect these two developments. Commentary aimed at workers puts the AI warning and the Iowa cuts side by side. It also acknowledges that Wells Fargo has not publicly linked any specific Iowa layoff to AI.6 That caution is appropriate. Our reading is that the Iowa cuts probably reflect several overlapping forces, with AI an increasingly explicit part of the plan rather than the only cause.

Mortgages, offshoring and the end of the asset cap

Two factors specific to Des Moines also explain why the metro keeps showing up in these filings. The bank's home mortgage business is heavily concentrated there. As recently as 2019, citing industry newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance, it was the country's largest mortgage lender, but it has pulled back under higher interest rates and regulatory pressure.11 The Register has repeatedly pointed to that retreat when asked why central Iowa is hit so often.1317 The bank has also shrunk its physical footprint. It sold its large downtown Des Moines office complex in 2025 and moved most of those employees to Jordan Creek.11

Some workers see another cause. In local online discussions, current and former employees have described a worsening work environment, and some say jobs are moving offshore, with India often named as the main destination.20 Those are anecdotal claims, not documented findings, but they show how employees understand what is happening.

The financial context makes the cuts harder for many workers to accept. The Federal Reserve lifted the $1.95 trillion asset cap on Wells Fargo in June 2025. The cap had been in place since the 2016 fake-accounts scandal, and lifting it allows the bank to grow again.13 Even so, Scharf said the focus remained on efficiency, not expansion.13 The bank's second-quarter 2026 results beat projected earnings by $700 million.11 A profitable bank, newly freed to grow, is still cutting staff. That makes clear that these layoffs are a deliberate strategy, not a response to financial trouble.

What it means for workers and the metro

Wells Fargo's Des Moines-area employment peaked at 14,500 in 2017 and later fell to what the Greater Des Moines Partnership describes as "more than 11,000."1317 Hy-Vee overtook it as the metro's largest employer in 2023, and the bank now ranks second.11 Bank layoffs are also part of a wider trend in the area. UnityPoint Health, for example, recently cut jobs in the area as it outsourced its information technology and revenue-cycle operations.19

For the people affected, outcomes vary. A former employee told WHO 13 that being laid off turned out to be "a blessing in disguise" and led to a better-paying job within about a month.18 Iowa's 3.2% unemployment rate as of August suggests the local job market still has room for displaced workers.10

The broader trend is still clear. The 14 people leaving on Oct. 17 are part of a deliberate, long-running effort to shrink the workforce, which bank leaders now say AI will speed up. Executives have said publicly that headcount will keep falling. The open questions are how many more small notices West Des Moines will see, and whether the bank will ever explain which jobs it is cutting and why.