By Christina Rexrode

AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan is trimming about 4,000 jobs, or about 1.5 percent of its work force, becoming the latest big bank to shrink its staff.

The bank said the cuts will be focused in consumer banking and mortgages. Many of the cuts would come through attrition, but the bank will lay off workers as well, a bank spokeswoman said.

The bank operates branches throughout Southwest Ohio.

The cuts were revealed in a presentation to investors Tuesday. They are part of the bank’s bigger cost-cutting campaign. They come after a year when the bank increased profit and revenue.

Profits at U.S. banks jumped almost 37 percent for the October-December period, reaching the highest level for a fourth quarter in six years as banks continued to step up lending.

The figures are fresh evidence of the industry’s sustained recovery more than four years after the financial crisis.

Banks earned $34.7 billion in the last three months of 2012, up from $25.4 billion a year ago and the highest for a fourth quarter since 2006, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported Tuesday. Sixty percent of banks reported improved earnings from the fourth quarter of 2011, the agency said.

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For all of 2012, the agency said bank earnings rose 19 percent to $141.3 billion, the second-highest annual level ever.

The move could signal a new direction for staffing: JPMorgan already shed about 1,200 jobs in 2012, after adding jobs in 2011 and 2010.

Job cuts have become a familiar story in the banking industry. Banks are navigating new government regulations that have crimped some old sources of revenue, like issuing credit cards to students or trading for the bank’s own profit. The banks have also said that complying with the new regulations is costing them more money.

Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs all trimmed jobs in 2012. Morgan Stanley’s current round of job cuts has focused on senior ranks and investment bankers. Bank of America has said it needs fewer people to work through problem mortgages, though it has cut jobs in other areas. Citigroup is scaling back in countries that it no longer sees as growth engines.