SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah-based bank is laying off hundreds of employees and closing branches over the next few months.

Zions Bancorp. started notifying employees Tuesday about a 5% workforce reduction across all aspects of the company. Zions has just over 10,000 employees in 11 states, meaning about 500 people will lose their jobs.

It’s unclear how many in Utah will be out of work.

The cuts are being made out of necessity due to declining revenue, said James Abbott, director of investor relations.

“It’s not something that we’re interested in doing, but it’s sort of something we feel that we need to do,” he said. “It’s really just a broad cut in order to help align the expense side of the equation with revenue side of the equation.”

Abbott said he didn’t know how many Utah employees would be let go. While a “relatively small number” of branches in other states will close, none in Utah are slated to shut down other than one the company previously announced, he said.

Abbott said he expects most workers will stay on through the end of the year as the company set the termination date as Jan. 1, 2020. In addition to customer-facing employees, those behind the scenes in areas including human resources, accounting, finance and technology will be laid off.

Zions senior executives also took “substantial” reduction in compensation to trim expenses and shore up profitability, he said.

The company has experienced a 5% decrease in gross profit margin, which corresponds to the size of the job cuts and bank closures, Abbott said. Zions, he said, anticipates a further compression in profit margin.

Banks across the country, he said, are losing money because of lower interest rates.

“Whenever an industry goes through a period of declining revenue or declining income, the business will have to make some very difficult decisions in order to continue the course it needs to stay on in order to be a healthy company,” Abbott said.

Zions noted the workforce reduction and up to $25 million in severance payouts as well as branch closures in its quarterly financial report released Monday. The closures will occur over the next several quarters, according to the report.

“We feel strongly that the branch is a critical part of being a community bank,” Abbott said, adding small business owners especially prefer in-person services.

The publicly traded company reported net earnings of $214 million for the third quarter of 2019. Earnings per share of stock were $1.17, up 18 cents from the previous quarter. Zions stock closed up 5.28% at $48.08 a share Tuesday.

“Given the challenging interest rate environment in which banks currently operate, we’re pleased with the quarter’s overall results,” Zions CEO Harris Simmons said in the report.

“As we adjust to a lower interest rate environment and anticipate the resulting continued pressure on interest margins, we will continue to take steps to carefully manage operating expenses in the year ahead,” he said. “We are optimistic that we will be able to manage 2020 operating expenses to a level that is no more than, and likely modestly reduced from, expected 2019 results.”

In 2015, Zions announced a corporate restructuring, including the consolidation of seven bank charters into a single charter and $120 million in expense reduction initiatives.