Bank of America Corp. laid off an unspecified number of employees yesterday at hundreds of Fleet Bank branches, a byproduct of the merger of the two banks, a company spokeswoman said.

A published report said 1,500 or more jobs could be affected, and Connecticut’s attorney general questioned whether Bank of America had lied when it promised not to cut Fleet jobs.

But a Bank of America source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the actual number of cuts would be “significantly” lower than 1,500.The Boston Globe, citing company documents it obtained and Fleet branch managers who were told of the cuts, had reported that number in Wednesday’s editions.

A spokeswoman for Bank of America, Eloise Hale, declined to specify how many jobs were being cut but confirmed some layoffs were occurring yesterday as part of the North Carolina bank’s merger with FleetBoston Financial Corp.

Ms. Hale said laid-off employees were advised Wednesday that they would no longer have jobs by day’s end.

“We realize this is a difficult situation for our associates,” she said. “These associates are receiving very attractive severance packages.”

Depending on length of service, the package includes 17 to 48 weeks of severance pay for employees making less than $75,000 a year.

Ms. Hale stuck with the bank’s earlier statements about the merger’s impact on staffing across the combined company.

“We have said from the very beginning that there would be 12,500 cuts as a result of the merger,” she said. “We continue to say that.”

Those cuts are expected to occur over two years, affecting about 7% of the combined companies’ work force of 181,000. Fleet had about 47,000 employees before the merger closed in the spring.

Ms. Hale said Bank of America was adjusting staffing at Fleet branches as a result of the merger, with some losing jobs and others gaining.

The Globe said Bank of America is in the process of converting Fleet’s 1,500 branches to its own model, which uses fewer full-time staff members per branch.

The layoffs will affect nearly every community in which Fleet does business, the Globe reported. One branch manager who asked not to be named said it was expected that one worker per branch – or about 1,500 total – would be laid off.

Ms. Hale said the reorganization ultimately would bring more employees into direct contact with customers and boost the number of tellers. She said the plan is not expected to lead to the closure of Fleet branches.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a statement criticizing the layoffs and asking Bank of America for the exact numbers of layoffs and a list of the affected Fleet branches.

“The commitments made to me, both oral and written, were clear and concise: Current employment levels will be kept constant, if not increased, and no overall staffing numbers will be cut,” he said.

The statement concluded, “We expect Bank of America to honor this promise, and will rigorously scrutinize these layoffs to make sure that they do.”

Bank of America’s Ms. Hale responded, “We will meet our commitment over time. Employment levels will drop in the short term, but we will over time grow employment levels as we grow in the market.”

Bank executives told state regulators in Massachusetts in May that the state would lose at least 500 jobs due to the merger.

Linnea Walsh, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Departments of Labor and Workforce Development, said yesterday that the state had received no notice of impending layoffs from Bank of America. Such notification could be required under federal law, depending on the timeline and the number of job cuts.

Bank of America’s Ms. Hale said, “If a notice is required, we will issue it.”

After completing its $48 billion acquisition of Fleet, Bank of America temporarily maintained the Fleet name in the Northeast as it began integrating the two companies.

This week, it began renaming Fleet branches in upstate New York before moving on to other parts of Fleet territory over the next few months.