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Updated October 9, 2025, at 8:19 p.m.

Harvard will lay off roughly 25 percent of staff represented by its clerical and technical workers’ union at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and reorganize several offices in response to mounting funding pressures, according to the union.

SEAS Dean David C. Parkes announced the layoffs, which also affected non-union staff, in an email sent to SEAS staff Thursday morning. He cited an increase in the federal tax on Harvard’s endowment income, an anticipated reduction in federal agencies’ reimbursement rates for indirect research costs, and “changes to the allocation of research funding” as financial pressures.

Parkes did not specify how many SEAS employees were laid off or which offices would be reorganized, and University and SEAS spokespeople declined to offer details on the layoffs. The Boston Globe reported, citing an unnamed source, that roughly 40 people were laid off.

“Though we have already made a number of changes, we cannot bridge the budgetary gap without reducing our workforce,” Parkes wrote in his email. “As a result, I have made the difficult decision to lay off members of our staff and significantly restructure several offices.”

The Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, in an email to its members sent Thursday morning, described the layoffs as the “largest cut at any Harvard school in decades and at least three times deeper than any other Harvard unit is undertaking in this challenging moment.”

It remains unclear which other schools have reduced their staff numbers, and how many employees they have laid off. The Harvard Kennedy School announced that it was laying off staff over the summer, and the School of Public Health also reduced employee numbers last spring.

Parkes’ email cited an increase in the federal tax on Harvard’s endowment income, an anticipated reduction in federal agencies’ reimbursement rates for indirect research costs, and “changes to the allocation of research funding” as financial pressures.

The layoffs are the latest indication that a judge’s order restoring billions of dollars in multi-year federal funding, which was frozen by the Trump administration in May, has not marked the end to Harvard’s funding troubles.

Parkes’ message also hinted at underlying pressures on SEAS’ finances, which he described as a longstanding problem.

“SEAS has been facing significant financial challenges for years,” he wrote. “While we are making progress towards stabilizing the School’s finances, the future we have been preparing for has changed.”

Parkes mentioned several additional cost-cutting measures aimed at shoring up SEAS’ budget, including cutting non-personnel expenses, pausing non-essential capital projects, freezing pay increase for staff and faculty, and reducing the amount of space leased by SEAS.

When HUCTW asked about the financial rationale for the decision, SEAS administrators “were unable or unwilling” to provide the union with data and reasons for the cuts — including future budget deficit estimates and a total number of necessary layoffs, according to the union’s email this morning.

“These cuts to faculty and student services and other core SEAS infrastructure, which do not appear to have any solid basis in current quantified realities, will have a profound negative impact on the quality of teaching, research, and learning at SEAS,” union leaders wrote.

In the letter, the union called on its members to email SEAS administrators in opposition to the staffing cuts and to inform the union of any cases of “SEAS spending on non-critical activities,” listing food at conferences and payments to private consultants or agency-based temporary employees as examples.

A SEAS spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs.

Correction: October 9, 2025

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences laid off 25 percent of its staff. In fact, it laid off 25 percent of its staff represented by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.