BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer
Mid-Peninsula residents with accounts at Bank of America should check the bank’s website before heading out to do some in-person banking.
At least seven Bank of America “financial centers” — located in Menlo Park, Redwood City, Mountain View and Los Altos — are temporarily closed.
The reason? A lack of employees.
B-of-A spokeswoman Colleen Haggerty said the bank has been “temporarily consolidating resources and staffing when possible.”
This includes sometimes staggering business hours even at the open banks, such as the one on Jefferson Avenue in Redwood City or Lytton Avenue in Palo Alto.
“We apologize for the inconvenience this may have created for some of our clients, and encourage them to go to BankofAmerica.com/Locator for the most current bank hours of operation and nearest open financial centers,” Haggerty said in an email.
The branches aren’t closed forever though.
“When we temporarily close a financial center, we will work to reopen it as soon as we can. Our Los Altos financial center on San Antonio Road, for example, will reopen later this week,” said Bank of America spokeswoman Colleen Haggerty in an email to the Daily Post.
The seven branches in the area that are temporarily closed are:
• 1875 Virginia Ave., Redwood City
• 250 Redwood Shores Parkway, Redwood City
• 633 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park
• 2180 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park
• 227 San Antonio Road, Los Altos
• 901 Fremont Ave., Los Altos
• 384 San Antonio Road, Mountian View
Only one Bank of America branch locally appears to be closed permanently, according to the bank’s website, the one at 395 Quarry Road in Palo Alto, across the street from Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. That branch officially closes on Dec. 7, according to the company.
These closures, temporary or not, come as employers across the country try to get employees back to work. Bank of America announced last week that it is raising its minimum wage to $21 an hour, to get its minimum hourly wage to $25 by 2025.
This means an employee working a typical 40 hours a week for 52 weeks would earn an annual salary of $43,680, about 40% of the area median income in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
However, many of Bank of America’s competitors pay between $14 and $16, according to information available on GlassDoor and LinkedIn.
The bank also announced in May that its vendors that work at its banks are required to pay their employees $15 an hour.
But despite Bank of America’s wage increases, other businesses in the area may rival that, with minimum wage in Mountain View and Sunnyvale over $16. In-N-Out’s starting salary is $19 an hour, according to the company’s website.
Meanwhile, Bank of America announced Thursday that its net income rose 58% to $7.26 billion, or 85 cents a share, in the most recent quarter.
Good, I hate wearing masks to see anyone in public.