The main UN agency for refugees will slash between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs from its 15,000 staff around the world because of funding cuts, the head of the agency’s union said Tuesday.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been among a host of UN and private aid agencies badly hit by funding cuts by the United States and other countries.
Letters announcing layoffs will start going out this week to UNHCR workers at the Geneva headquarters and other countries, said Nathalie Meynet, head of the UNHCR staff council and of a coordination committee for unions for UN staff.
“It’s a very difficult week in our organisation,” Meynet told a press conference. “We are looking at 3,000 to 4,000 position cuts overall.”
Questioned about the figures, UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh told AFP the agency did not yet have a figure for the total layoffs. He said staff costs would be cut by 30 percent and a new staff plan would be in operation by October.
The United States has slashed its foreign aid under a radical spending review ordered by US President Donald Trump and other countries have also cut spending.
UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi estimates that the United States accounted for about 40 percent of the agency’s budget, some $2 billion a year.
Meynet and other union officials for UN staff complained that they had little input into the decisions on which jobs were being cut.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres ordered a major review in March to make the UN system more “efficient” as it confronts the US budget cuts.
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