Layoffs On The Horizon at Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae, the national mortgage dealer headquartered in Washington, will be laying off some of its staff as part of a corporate realignment, according to a Washington Business Journal report. Fannie isn't talking numbers, but WTOP's sources say that it will be under 500 jobs. (That's still almost 10% of the organization's total workforce -- no small potatoes.) Fannie last made such sweeping job cuts in March 2007, after an accounting scandal caused the loss of several hundred jobs.

The layoffs shouldn't come as a terribly big surprise. Fannie Mae's stock closed trading on Friday at 67 cents per share, and it has been a very trying couple of months for Ms. Mae -- lowlighted by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson claiming that the government-controlled company should be replaced and the veritable smackdown handed down by a Congressional panel about the organization's hand in the national foreclosure crisis.