Laid off from Fifth Third.

What Fifth Third layoffs have meant for employees

If you worked for Comerica, the notices on record around the sale have landed on its offices, from the Frisco tower Chron first reported in January to the two Michigan sites that, by the Detroit News count in July, had put the bank's Michigan merger cuts past 700. Before the deal closed, CEO Tim Spence said its $850 million in savings would come mainly from facilities, systems and vendors and from "some headcount reductions concentrated in overhead and noncustomer-facing roles," Banking Dive reported, and on the January earnings call he thanked people at both banks "who will not be continuing with us on this journey." Unverified LinkedIn posts also described cuts to Comerica corporate roles in Michigan and other states as the deal neared its close, the Detroit News noted in a May report. Legacy Fifth Third staff were part of the change as well, since twenty of the Michigan branches that closed were Fifth Third's and a company spokesperson said in January that both banks would see staffing changes.

The Farmington Hills campus shows how far a promise about a building can sit from the jobs inside it. That May report recalled the bank's pledge, made when the deal was announced, to keep Comerica's largest corporate office, and in July the bank called metro Detroit one of five major employment hubs for the combined company, yet the May notice still landed on that campus and Michigan's list later raised its count. If you work at a site the company has pledged to keep, it's worth reading the pledge as one about the building and following the state's notice list for the jobs.

Notices came early and ran long. Comerica's first went to Texas before the deal had even closed, and most of the later ones give a window rather than a single day, the Auburn Hills notice running from September into the following January, so two people covered by the same notice can leave months apart. If your notice gives a range rather than a date, it's worth asking which date applies to you and what happens to your pay and benefits if it moves.

Spence measures this integration against the MB Financial one, and the Illinois notices the Chicago Sun-Times tied to that deal set some layoffs most of a year after the first, under the state's March 2019 listing. If you were on the MB side then, the Comerica notices may look familiar, down to the gap between a notice's first date and its last, and if you're on the Comerica side now, the MB timeline is Fifth Third's own precedent for how far apart those dates can fall.

At the branches the bank's stated first choice was a move rather than an exit, with some staff to be offered transfers or a shot at other positions, and its Michigan market president told WOOD TV each closing branch had four to 10 people. If you've been offered both a transfer and a separation package, you can ask whether turning the transfer down changes the package, and it's worth knowing whether the receiving branch's hours, pay and commute match what you have now.

If you worked in Michigan, Michigan's layoff notices show the notices the state has posted, and unemployment benefits in Michigan covers what a claim there involves. Texas readers have the same pair in Texas layoff notices and unemployment benefits in Texas. In our WARN filings tracker, searching under both Fifth Third Bank and Comerica catches both states, since the Michigan notices carry the Fifth Third name and the Texas ones Comerica's, and matching the city and date ties a notice to your site.

A sourced history of Fifth Third layoffs

• September 2026, 75 Michigan branch closings

  Fifth Third set 75 overlapping Michigan branches to close by Labor Day, 55 of them Comerica's, saying some staff would be offered transfers or a chance to apply elsewhere, the Detroit News reported. A spokesperson later told WOOD TV the consolidation was done.

• July 2026, Auburn Hills operations center

  Fifth Third told Michigan it would cut 234 jobs at Comerica's former operations center on Hamlin Road between September 11 and January 29, bringing its Michigan merger cuts past 700, the Detroit News reported.

• July 2026, a third Frisco notice

  On July 10, Fifth Third announced 115 more job cuts in Frisco, Texas, set to run from September into late January.

• May 2026, Farmington Hills Great Lakes campus

  Fifth Third's notice for Comerica's former Great Lakes campus listed 502 layoffs from July 1 into November, the Detroit News reported, months after the bank pledged in October 2025 to maintain the campus. Michigan's list later showed the notice at 637 jobs.

• February 2026, deal closes and a second Frisco notice

  Fifth Third closed the deal on February 1, its second-quarter 10-Q shows. Comerica Bank, by then part of Fifth Third, told Texas in a February 5 letter that 54 more Frisco jobs would go between April 24 and May 22, Chron reported.

• January 2026, Comerica's first Frisco notice before closing

  Before the deal closed, Comerica told Texas in a January 7 letter that it would lay off 184 employees at its Frisco Star Tower office from March 13, calling the cut a reduction-in-force.

• March 2019, MB Financial takeover cuts in Rosemont and Chicago

  Fifth Third's Illinois notices of March 13, tied to its takeover of MB Financial, covered 441 and 29 jobs at two Rosemont offices and 23 downtown, with layoffs from May 13, 2019 through May 1, 2020. Fifth Third called them mostly redundant administrative and back-office jobs, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

What to do if you're laid off from Fifth Third

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Fifth Third's biggest hubs: Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Ohio. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Fifth Third's hub states run: Michigan, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.