USAID freeze means job losses across America and beyond
Visualising the number of jobs affected by the 2025 USAID freeze.
The USAID freeze means job losses across America and beyond - and the knock-on effects are already affecting the world’s vulnerable.
The graph above shows figures coming out of Devex and their furlough tracker of those professionally affected.
Clearly it’s not only these individuals affected, but the many dependent on the humanitarian programmes they coordinated. The result of this loss is already believed to be threatening lives globally. As Devex reports:
“Out of 390 current and former USAID staff, 86% are either ‘completely’ or ‘very’ certain that the freeze will lead to significant loss of life, particularly due to its impact on vital food security and global health programs.”
For example, take the nearly 1 million people in Syria who no longer have access to healthcare, drinking water or shelter.
Read more on the Devex survey with USAID members.
HIV cuts in South Africa alone could lead to 500,000 deaths over 10 years
What will any new US international aid space look like in the future? I think we had a hint of it recently when Trump threatened to stop aid to Egypt (the fifth-largest recipient of US foreign aid in 2023) if they didn’t accept the deportation of Palestinians
All this to save less than 0.3% GNI.