With delinquent mortgages at unprecedented levels, sheer market conditions command a staff the size of a small army dedicated to working with distressed borrowers. Servicers have added thousands to their loss mitigation teams over the past few years and most are still recruiting.

Wells Fargo has hired and trained 10,000 additional people to work with delinquent customers and reassigned thousands of internal team members, bringing its home preservation staff to 16,000. The company says employees who support home preservation are being utilized in a number of significant ways.

For example, in June of last year, Wells began assigning one mortgage specialist to manage a modification from beginning to end – a measure the company says has made “a big difference” for customers facing financial hardships and has been recognized as an industry best practice.

Wells Fargo has also staffed 27 Home Preservation Centers located in hard-hit communities, and has hosted 32 free home preservation workshops around the country and participated in more than 537 third-party sponsored events since 2009.

JPMorgan Chase has added more than 10,100 new employees nationwide to the default and loss mitigation organization since 2008, almost doubling its staff…