UN could cut thousands of jobs under reform plans

The cash-strapped United Nations could slash 20 percent of jobs -- or thousands of positions -- in its executive arm under ongoing reform plans, according to an internal memo seen Thursday by AFP.

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“The Secretary-General has set an ambitious target, to achieve a meaningful reduction (between 15 percent and 20 percent) of the regular budget for 2026, including a reduction of 20 percent of posts, for the UN Secretariat,” UN controller Chandramouli Ramanathan wrote in a message this week to dozens of department heads.

The UN’s budget for 2025 totals $3.7 billion.

The Secretariat, one of the main bodies tasked with carrying out the decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, employed about 35,000 people as of late 2023 -- most of them in New York, but also in Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi.