Booth said that the department in which he works is already short of staff.

“They should be hiring more people, hiring more support staff, getting the libraries working better instead of closing Hilles and laying off people,” he said.

HUCTW co-president William Jaeger, however, said he was surprised that the number of layoffs was as small as it was, given the size of the budget gap.

“If they had taken staff layoffs as their primary solution to the problem, it might have meant 30 or 40 people losing their jobs,” Jaeger said.

A group of unionized labor activists known as the No Layoffs Campaign are not nearly as relieved about the announcement.

Geoff Carens, a librarian in Government Documents who is a founding member of the organization, said he could not reconcile the staff reductions with Harvard’s affluent reputation and bulging endowment.

“I just think all of us feel that in a week where you have all this incredible economic news coming out about Harvard, and how well they’re doing, it’s appalling that they’re eliminating positions where people are making under 40k to cut costs,” he said, referring to a report showing that Harvard’s endowment outperformed many of its peers.

Carens also speculated that higher paid, more experienced workers had been targeted in this recent round of layoffs. Brainard vehemently denied the charge, calling it a “fallacy” which ignored the fact that eliminated positions had been chosen based on functional strategy, not salary or experience.

Of the 10 workers to be laid-off, two are HUCTW members, and of the 8.5 positions that will be cut by attrition, 3.5 would have gone to HUCTW members, according to a letter sent to staff. Jaeger added that a clause in HUCTW workers’ contracts stipulates that they be given first priority if they lose their jobs and seek similar positions in the University.

That becomes complicated in times of belt-tightening, however, according to Cline.

“There aren’t as many vacancies across all of Harvard as there were two years ago. It’s a tighter situation,” she said. “The opportunities are fewer than they were several years ago.”

Although the $2.3 million dollar gap has now been nearly closed for the 2005 fiscal year, Brainard said she could not rule out the possibility of further cost-cutting measures, which may include more layoffs.

“It’s something that continues to be looked at,” she said. “As long as the University is in this fiscal condition, it’ll always be an element.”

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Leon Neyfakh can be reached at neyfakh@fas.harvard.edu.