Johns Hopkins University announces it will fire nearly 2,000 workers over cut to federal funding

Johns Hopkins University on Thursday announced that it will be firing close to 2,000 workers globally, after it lost over $800 million in federal U.S. funding.

The workforce reduction comes after Secretary of State Marco Rubio cut 83% of programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday. He also pulled 5,200 contracts that he claimed saved the U.S. tens of billions of dollars.

A spokesperson for the school told The Hill that most of the staff who will be laid off are workers in other countries, but that over 200 U.S. workers will be impacted by the cuts.

"The termination of more than $800 million in funding is now forcing us to wind down critical work here in Baltimore and internationally,” the spokesperson said. “We can confirm that the elimination of foreign aid funding has led to the loss of 1,975 positions in 44 countries internationally and 247 in the United States."

The spokesperson added that another 29 international workers and 78 U.S. employees will be "furloughed with a reduced scheduled." It is not clear when the terminations will take place.

The firings come after the Trump administration also vowed to reduce federal funding for institutes of higher education that participated in antisemitic activity last year, including Harvard and Columbia University. 

Harvard has frozen its hiring practices in anticipation of the cuts, and the Trump administration announced last week that it would pull roughly $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.