UN agencies and other international organisations have announced thousands of layoffs over the last few months as they grapple with a bleak financial reality. While many of those will inevitably affect Geneva\u2019s international hub, its thousands of workers still remain in the dark as to the future of their careers.<\/p>\n
In Geneva\u2019s international quarter, along the quiet streets that fan out from the Place des Nations, a profound transformation is shaking its resident international organisations and UN agencies to the core. The Trump administration\u2019s abrupt axing of almost all foreign aid, exacerbated by a wider global retreat in humanitarian funding, has forced organisations finalising their 2026 budgets to downsize drastically their operations, at the cost of thousands of workers.<\/p>\n
Many of these redundancies are starting to emerge. UNAids, one of the organisations hardest hit by US funding cuts, is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to just 19 employees as part of a sweeping restructuring plan that will see it scale back operations and shrink its overall headcount by 54 per cent, leaving 280 staff worldwide. A spokesperson said that Geneva staff had been informed and that the changes are to roll out throughout the year.<\/p>\n
Geneva Solutions has also learnt that Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, internally announced that it was eliminating 155* full-time positions at its headquarters in the Swiss city just ahead of its major pledging conference at the end of June, where the US made the shock announcement<\/a> that it was pulling its funding for the organisation that vaccinates children in lower-income countries. The US covers about 13 per cent of Gavi\u2019s funding \u2013 around $300m annually. <\/p>\n A spokesperson confirmed that the decision to reduce 24 per cent of its workforce was the result of a year-long review \u201cto align Gavi \u2019s structure with its strategic goals, enhance efficiency and adjust to a changing environment of pressing resource constraints\u201d. It is understood that some staff whose roles were terminated may be reassigned to other projects.<\/p>\n Read also: International Geneva: who may be losing US aid?<\/a><\/p>\n Other organisations that rely heavily on US donations have also been swift to announce layoffs. The International Organisation for Migration has dismissed around 20 per cent<\/a> of its more than 1,000 staff at the agency\u2019s Geneva headquarters and relocated an undisclosed number to overseas field offices. More than 3,000 employees<\/a> working on the US-funded resettlement programme for migrants were also let go earlier in the year.<\/p>\n The International Labour Organization, which has 3,654 global staff including 1,255 at its head office in Geneva, confirmed that termination letters were sent to 190 staff whose projects were halted after the withdrawal of US funding. A spokesperson said the organisation was able to reassign 92 staff to new roles. These are understood to be mainly field-based jobs, with two people in Geneva losing their positions.<\/p>\n The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, confirmed that by the end of October, it would be cutting 3,500 jobs globally as well as hundreds of temporary contracts. Asked how many of those would affect Geneva, home to the UN agency\u2019s headquarters and about 1,000 of its staff, Olga Sarrado Mur, the agency\u2019s spokesperson, said an exact estimate is not yet available. According to a staffer with knowledge of the matter, some 140 locally recruited staff are particularly at risk of losing their jobs \u2013 deemed \u201ctoo costly\u201d compared to their international counterparts. Salaries of local staff (regardless of nationality) are set to be competitive with the local job market and thus vary greatly from country to country. International staff, on the other hand, are offered a salary on a fixed basis, adjusted to the cost of living.<\/p>\n In any case, the dismissals have already begun. The number of UNHCR staff at a global level \u2013 temporary appointments and affiliates included \u2013 has fallen from 19,768 at the end of 2024 to 17,575 as of May 2025, Sarrado Mur said, stressing that other cost-saving measures are being taken, like relocating certain posts, centralising services such as some IT work, finance and human resources. \u201cUNHCR\u2019s priority through the review and downsizing process has been to safeguard, as much as possible, our capacity to support refugees and deliver results in our operations while streamlining our structures,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Unicef, the UN\u2019s fund for children, has also been forced to take measures to contend with a $58 million shortfall this year, announcing recently it would have to reduce its 13,000-strong global workforce by 20 per cent. No details have been provided as to what that means for Geneva, where its private partnerships and funding division and regional office for Europe and Central Asia are based. A staffer at another organisation said they had knowledge of at least two colleagues who had been suddenly dismissed by Unicef. The agency didn\u2019t respond to queries from Geneva Solutions.<\/p>\n The World Health Organization (WHO), hit by the departure of its largest donor, the United States, is facing a global workforce reduction of 20-25 per cent, according to internal statements and documents, reported on by Health Policy Watch<\/a>, and the cuts could be as high as 40 per cent<\/a> at the WHO’s recently renovated Geneva headquarters, which has a workforce of more than 2,600 employees, and also faces the largest budget deficit. Some employees and projects would be transferred to other, less expensive cities.<\/p>\n \u201cWHO is currently in the process of restructuring and the new staffing numbers and redundancies are expected to be known in the coming months,\u201d a spokesperson for the organisation said.\u00a0 The agency, which faces a $1.8bn shortfall in its already scaled-back $4.2bn budget for 2026-2027, has already shrunk its senior management team and halved the number of departmental directors in an effort to reduce costs. The WHO said the contracts of approximately 100 temporary staff in Geneva have either not been renewed or will not be renewed. Meanwhile, over 100 staff have volunteered to take early retirement.<\/p>\n In limbo<\/p>\n In other parts of the UN, the uncertainty is even greater. The reform process launched by UN secretary general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres in March has sparked much speculation. A mix of leaked memos and public announcements points to significant shifts that could lead to the UN secretariat\u2019s workforce shrinking by 20 per cent. That includes the UN Geneva Office, which employs a little over 1,000 staff. Another 3,000 are employed in Geneva by the UN secretariat\u2019s specialised departments and programmes, such as the UN Human Rights Office, the UN trade and development agency, the UN humanitarian relief agency, Ocha, and the UN Environment Programme.<\/p>\n The trade agency\u2019s head, Rebecca Grynspan, whose headquarters and the majority of staff reside in Geneva, has also said that as part of a 20 per cent reduction objective, she was considering cutting 70 jobs. Heads of departments have also been ordered to draw up a list of positions that could be relocated, with the UN human rights chief Volker T\u00fcrk planning, for example, to move about 120 out of roughly 900 jobs in Geneva to cheaper hubs.<\/p>\n Such proposals will have to first get the green light from member states at this autumn\u2019s General Assembly in New York as they agree on budgets for next year. But the reform process has frustrated staff unions, who say they\u2019ve been sidelined. \u201cStaff and managers are totally in the dark about which positions will be cut and how many,\u201d says Ian Richards, president of the UN Geneva staff union, accusing the initiative\u2019s lead, under-secretary general for policy Guy Ryder, of \u201cmaintaining full secrecy over the process and refusing to consult\u201d, despite claiming transparency.<\/p>\n While mass layoffs might still be a long way off, staff from several organisations point to temporary contracts being left to expire \u2013 a simpler way to bring numbers down without the paperwork and expenses of terminating contracts. Other signs point to an increasingly reduced UN job market.<\/p>\n A Devex analysis<\/a> of UN positions posted on its own jobs platform revealed a 43 per cent drop in hiring compared to last year. The development-focused media outlet also found that long-term consultancies and full-time staff positions show the sharpest decline, with agencies relying heavily on short-term contracts as they struggle to plan for the future. In total, the UN and its specialised agencies employed 12,153 people in 2024, including contractors \u2013 the majority (11,862) in Geneva.<\/p>\n Canton steps in to help<\/p>\n The Canton of Geneva has taken measures to come to the aid of international staff impacted by the spate of cuts, with many living in limbo until the outcome of the UN reform process is revealed later this year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very concerned about the situation currently affecting International Geneva and the financial crisis it is going through. We are concerned for the fate of the employees and professionals in this sector,” B\u00e9atrice Ferrari, the Canton of Geneva\u2019s director of international affairs, said last month at an information and support session organised by the International Geneva Welcome Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n More than 1,200 people registered to attend, which Ferrari said \u201cspoke volumes\u201d about the level of concern.\u00a0 \u201cWe are actively working with federal and municipal authorities and the private sector to find concrete solutions and support those in difficulty,\u201d Ferrari separately told Geneva Solutions, adding that international Geneva \u201chas always demonstrated resilience\u201d.<\/p>\n