Fifth Third Bank is cutting 502 jobs at Comerica’s Farmington Hills office, a major hit for the suburban Great Lakes Campus as the Cincinnati lender folds Comerica into its operations. The layoffs, tied to integration steps after this year’s acquisition, will affect hundreds of people who report to the Farmington Hills hub.
According to Crain's Detroit Business, the full layoff count is 502 positions, largely concentrated at the Farmington Hills site. Crain’s describes the move as classic post-merger consolidation tied to the Comerica deal and notes that its reporting offers the most detailed public breakdown of the headcount so far.
Fifth Third completed its acquisition of Comerica on February 1 and laid out an integration roadmap that includes branch consolidations and a systems conversion, the bank said in its first-quarter earnings release from Fifth Third. The filing projects about $360 million in net cost savings this year and an $850 million annual run rate by the fourth quarter as merger synergies kick in. Those kinds of efficiency targets are usually the backdrop for job cuts in big bank tie-ups.
Farmington Hills hub at center of cuts
Comerica only recently turned the Farmington Hills complex into a showcase office. In 2024, the bank pulled together a roughly 340,000-square-foot Great Lakes Campus by joining two adjacent Corporate Drive buildings and moving in employees from multiple regional locations. The campus, which features amenities such as a cafeteria operated by Plum Market, was pitched as a central operations hub for the area, according to Platinum Management.
Fifth Third's commitments and local scale
When regulators reviewed the merger, Fifth Third told them it planned to keep Comerica’s Great Lakes Campus in Farmington Hills and estimated the site would employ roughly 2,000 people. Those same regulatory documents show Fifth Third also made community investment and wage commitments tied to the transaction, according to filings from the Federal Reserve Board.
Merger-related cuts have come in waves
The Farmington Hills layoffs are the latest in a steady series of job moves tied to the Comerica and Fifth Third integration. Earlier this year, Comerica notified regulators that about 184 roles would be eliminated at its Frisco Business and Innovation Hub as the deal moved forward. Coverage from KERA detailed the filing and the early rounds of workforce changes.
Legal note: WARN rules
Under the federal WARN Act, employers that meet certain size and layoff thresholds generally must provide 60 days' notice before mass layoffs or plant closings. Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity outlines the state’s WARN criteria and offers rapid-response services for workers who receive such notices, according to Michigan LEO.
What's next
Fifth Third’s integration schedule calls for a major systems conversion and additional branch consolidations later this year as the bank works toward the savings targets laid out in its Q1 filing, according to Fifth Third. It has not yet been disclosed which specific teams at Farmington Hills will lose positions or whether an official WARN notice has been filed in Michigan. Any such filings would typically surface in state records and internal company communications, and local officials say they are preparing to respond with support and resources as more details emerge.
