The University of Southern California began cutting 259 jobs on Friday as it tackles a rising operating deficit of more than $230 million
Since July 9, USC has laid off — or is in the process of terminating — 975 people throughout the university system’s nearly 24,600 faculty and staff. That tally doesn’t include 9,185 student workers.
The university is “reducing and reorganizing its workforce due to cutbacks in funding and necessary budget reductions,” wrote Melissa Gerdes-Leonard, associate vice president of client services with USC’s human resources department, in an Oct. 27 letter filed with the state’s Employment Development Department.
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The latest round of layoffs are happening at USC’s University Park, a leafy 229-acre main campus for the institution’s academic schools and residential buildings near Exposition Park in downtown Los Angeles. After the cuts are completed Dec. 31, USC will have shed 616 people on its main campus, or two-thirds of the workforce laid off to date.
Some of the positions cut include a marketing director, procurement specialist, research administrator, office managers, library supervisor, event and facilities managers and instructional lab technicians.
Gerdes-Leonard couldn’t be reached for comment, but USC spokesman Paul McQuiston confirmed the layoffs were coming as a result of the operating deficit and girding for cuts in federal funding.
An update on the budget situation is expected next week.
In a July 14 letter to faculty and staff, Interim President Byung-soo Kim announced spending cuts amid reductions to the university’s federal funding and inefficiencies to USC’s operating model. Kim reported the university lost more than $200 million in the 2025 fiscal year ending June 30, an increase from a $158 million deficit in 2024.
Andrew Guzman, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, said at an Academic Senate meeting on Sept. 17 that USC had a projected structural deficit of $230 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026. He outlined a plan of “personnel actions” and budget cuts to save $400 million through the end of the current fiscal year.
Since the release of Kim’s letter in July, the scale of the layoffs has grown.
The Viterbi School of Engineering laid off 55 professors, academic program directors, adjunct and clinical instructors and student services advisers, while the USC Health Sciences Campus laid off 151 — including several at the Keck School of Medicine, which includes a teaching hospital, specialized cancer hospital, community hospitals, and outpatient clinics throughout Southern California, and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Other layoffs have happened at the Soto Street Building II, an academic and administrative building on the Health Sciences Campus in the Boyle Heights area northeast of downtown Los Angeles along Zonal Avenue, and a clinic on Flower Street and other Health Sciences buildings along San Pablo Street.
