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The World Health Organization (WHO) is asking its older employees to opt for voluntary retirement in an attempt to cut costs ahead of US’ exit, Bloomberg reported.
The global health body sent an email to employees who will be aged 55 years or older by June and offered them early retirement with four months’ pay. The offer is voluntary, and staffers who accept will exit from WHO by July 15.
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The current retirement age at WHO is 65, but employees who joined before 2014 can retire at 62. Additionally, employees hired before 1990 can retire when they reach 60 years of age.
Employees who take up the offer will have to work for three months to ensure a handover and will be paid 45 days of unused annual leave. International employees, on the other hand, will be compensated for the cost of moving back to their home countries.
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The email is WHO’s latest move to cut its expenses and plug a significant funding gap that appeared after US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the country from the organisation’s membership.
The administration is backing away from global aid in general. The WHO has already frozen hiring, suspended investments and cut non-essential travel.
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The US contributed $1.3 billion to the WHO between 2022 and 2023, helping the agency work on containing diseases such as HIV, polio, Ebola, and a recent outbreak of lethal Marburg virus, according to Bloomberg. The agency’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hit back at Trump’s decision, saying the reasons given for the exit are unsupported by facts.
While reducing the WHO’s expenses, early retirement could mean the departure of some of the organisation’s most experienced staff. It’s unclear yet whether the WHO will resort to layoffs if not enough staff offer to leave early.
