Harvard Technology Services Lays Off Dozens of Workers, Citing ‘Financial Challenges’

Harvard laid off 38 information technology workers last week in its latest cost-cutting measure as the University faces extended financial uncertainty.

Harvard’s chief information officer, Klara Jelinkova, announced the layoffs in a Nov. 4 email to HUIT staff, citing “significant financial challenges” at the University level. Jelinkova added that no further layoffs were anticipated as of Nov. 4.

The HUIT layoffs are only the latest in a series of labor-related cuts, as Harvard juggles the impacts of a hiked endowment tax and federal funding cuts. Harvard laid off 35 workers at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences last month, and both the Harvard Kennedy School and School of Public Health laid off an undisclosed number of workers earlier this year.

Jelinkova’s email cited a “shifting funding environment,” but did not specify which financial shortfalls prompted the layoffs or which positions were eliminated.

Supervisors told some of the HUIT staff that their positions were being eliminated in a group meeting on Nov. 4, but they did not specify how officials had determined which positions would be cut, according to one worker in attendance who lost their job last week.

“For HUIT, this shifting funding environment required a close examination of our operations—streamlining functions, reducing operating costs, retiring older systems, and focusing resources on the technologies most critical to Harvard’s teaching, research, and administration,” Jelinkova wrote in the email, adding that layoffs were a “last resort.”

“We took many steps to reduce costs before reaching this point, but these measures alone were not enough to ensure HUIT’s long-term stability and sustainability,” she wrote.

An HUIT spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs or the specific positions impacted, instead referring The Crimson to Jelinkova’s emailed announcement.

Though Harvard has regained most of the nearly $3 billion in federal funding that was slashed by the Trump administration this spring, a slew of other federal measures — including the raised endowment tax and reduced reimbursement rates on indirect research costs — will pull more from University coffers.

Harvard instituted a hiring freeze in March and paused merit-based wage increases for faculty and non-union staff. Its first offers to both its non-tenure-track faculty union and its custodial workers’ union during contract negotiations this fall included yearlong wage freezes.

Some of the laid-off HUIT workers were represented by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. HUCTW President Carrie Barbash declined to comment on the union’s response to the layoffs.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.