
Harvard University is cutting 275 jobs and reducing the hours of another 40 to cope with what the university says is a 30 percent drop in the value of its endowment.
The layoffs are the latest in a number of moves the college made recently to cut costs, including salary freezes, limiting new hires, early retirement incentives and a slowdown of its science complex in Allston.
The layoffs will impact less than 2 percent of Harvard’s 16,000 core staff and faculty, the university said. Employees affected by the layoffs are administrative and professional staff, clerical and technical personnel.
“While these actions have helped us reduce expenses, we nevertheless have more we must do. In the coming days, Harvard’s schools and units, as well as its central administration, will be carrying out a reduction in the size of our workforce — modest in comparison to the overall size of our University-wide staff, but nonetheless painful for those people directly affected, as well as for our community as a whole,” Harvard President Drew Faust said in a letter to the Harvard community.
Harvard’s endowment, the largest of all U.S. academic institutions, was hit hard by the economic turmoil and losses in the stock market. Marilyn Hausammann, vice president for human resources at Harvard, said in a letter to staff that the institution has seen “pressure on other revenue sources,” which could include tuition and fees as well as revenue from the university’s research.




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