MetLife laid off 1,000 in recent months

WARWICK – MetLife Inc., the largest life insurer in the U.S. by policies and a major Rhode Island employer, has shed 1,000 jobs nationwide since late last year, including an unspecified number in Rhode Island, company officials disclosed this week.

“Costs are coming down,” William Wheeler, MetLife’s chief financial officer, told a conference of investors in New York on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News. “We don’t brag about this, but we terminated 1,000 people in the first quarter this year, domestically,” Wheeler added.

But Ted Mitchell, a local spokesman for MetLife, described the 1,000 layoffs as “old news,” saying Wheeler was referring to a round of layoffs that were announced last October and completed by the end of last year.

Those included scattered layoffs at the company’s MetLife Home & Auto division, which is based in Warwick. “It’s not our practice to give you exact numbers, but the impact was not significant in Rhode Island,” Mitchell said. “And those who were let go were given severance packages and outplacement assistance.”

MetLife currently has between 1,800 and 1,900 employees in Rhode Island, Mitchell said. The company reported 2,009 employees in Providence Business News’s 2009 Book of Lists.

In its quarterly filing with the S.E.C. earlier this month, MetLife estimated that it would spend a total of $108 million on restructuring costs, mostly in the form of severance payments to terminated employees, for actions taken in the six months ended March 31.

More layoffs may be in the offing. MetLife said in the filing it expects to have more restructuring expenses, including further severance payments, over the course of this year and next.

In May, MetLife posted a first-quarter net loss of $544 million, its first quarterly loss since 2001.

MetLife Inc. (NYSE: MET) – the nation’s largest life insurer based on policies in force – is a provider of insurance and financial services to more than 70 million customers in the United States, Latin America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Its Rhode Island-based MetLife Home & Auto division employs between 1,800 and 1,900 people at its offices in Warwick. Additional information is available at MetLife.com.