UCLA Chancellor Gene Block says no layoffs through end of fiscal year
By Chad Winthrop
Despite pandemic-related budget challenges, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said last week that the campus’s career employees will not face COVID-19-related layoffs through the end of the fiscal year, which ends on June 30, 2021.
The announcement is a continuation of a previous pledge Block made in August to have no pandemic-related layoffs of career employees through Jan. 15.
“While I do not know what the future holds, UCLA will continue to do whatever it can — with your continued support, resilience and flexibility — to retain as many of our dedicated employees as possible during this very difficult time,” Block said.
Among the University of California campuses, UCLA has faced the greatest financial impact, with a revenue shortfall and added COVID-related expense that currently stands at about $725 million.
Accoridng to UCLA, cost-saving and job-saving measures that allowed the campus to provide this extended protection to employees include reducing hiring, the previously announced planning for a longer winter curtailment, offering a voluntary separation program for eligible staff and creating an employee reassignment program.
The reassignment program invites certain UCLA employees to take classes and re-train for new duties, allows employees who have less available work due to the pandemic to serve other areas in need.
