Capital One laying off more than 1,700 employees after buying Riverwoods-based Discover

Capital One is laying off more than 1,700 workers, two years after its acquisition of Riverwoods-based Discover Financial Services.

A Capital One spokesperson said 1,139 employees are being impacted by the layoffs. Nearly half of those workers are based in Illinois — 532 employees at the former Discover headquarters in Riverwoods and 69 workers, who live in Illinois but work remotely. The remaining 538 employees to be laid off work remotely and report to a team based in Riverwoods.

The employees span a number of positions, but the spokesperson said none are front-line customer facing associates.

The banking giant has now laid off 1,748 employees since late 2025. Capital One filed its latest WARN notice on March 3 with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

The layoffs are tied to its $35 billion acquisition of Discover in February 2024, according to the company spokesperson. The merger brought together two of the nation’s biggest lenders and credit card issuers, now serving more than 100 million customers.

“As part of our continued journey to integrate Discover with Capital One, we announced the difficult decision to eliminate some Discover associate roles across the organization,” the company said in a statement. “Our focus right now is on fully supporting our colleagues impacted by this change.”

Most of the employees’ last day will be May 4, though a company spokesperson said the layoffs are happening in phases. The company’s WARN notice shows more than 80 employees will leave in June, with the last group leaving by Oct. 2.

Capital One will provide workers career transition support, including “enhanced severance, benefits and outplacement resources,” a spokesperson said.

In October, Capital One launched the $25 million program Scaling Pathways to Homeownership with Chicago nonprofit Lever for Change. The company said at the time that the launch was part of its acquisition of Discover.