BOSTON — In what the company is describing as a “difficult decision,” a Boston-based global public health firm has announced that it will be laying off nearly half of its staff.
In a statement shared by John Snow Inc., the firm announced that they’ve “made the difficult decision to lay off nearly 50% (approximately 1100) of our dedicated and talented staff members across our U.S. and international programs.”
This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing U.S. foreign aid. According to Trump, “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values” and “serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”
“At the same time, we remain resolute in our commitment to our partnerships and programs to improve lives through better health and education outcomes,” the company wrote on its website. “JSI’s programs will continue to be fully resourced with our robust technical expertise, leveraging our resilient community relationships and JSI’s decades of global respect.”
The firm relies on USAID’s foreign assistance, accounting for 63% of its annual funding, and aims to address global health issues by “providing a broad range of services to the public and private health sectors to enable people to live to their full health potential.”
According to the Boston Globe, other New England-based companies are also facing issues from the funding freeze.
A Vermont consulting firm let go 76 employees last week, with more than $3 million in unpaid invoices for expenses accrued under federal contracts, and a Providence, Rhode Island, company has canceled orders for its products, and medical supplies for women and newborns, according to the newspaper.
Last week, a federal judge set a five-day deadline for the Trump administration to start lifting its USAID funding freeze.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
