• President Donald Trump froze USAID spending to put "American interests" first.
• The decision has left at least 12,700 Americans jobless, a number that's expected to grow.
• In North Carolina, home to some of the largest USAID contractors, hundreds have been furloughed.

They have chosen to delay discretionary spending for new furniture and subscription services. They worry about being able to afford groceries for their families. And they have been left to wonder whether they will get paid for work already performed.

President Donald Trump's January 20 executive order placed a 90-day freeze on foreign aid in the name of putting "American interests" first. That order and other actions, which halted work on hundreds of projects funded by the US Agency for International Development, have had profound ripple effects on American lives.

Intended to reduce wasteful spending and limit the money the US sends overseas, the actions have impacted thousands of American workers whose jobs are funded by USAID. The funding freeze has been acutely felt in North Carolina, one of the top state recipients of USAID dollars, according to interviews with USAID contractors who have been furloughed or fired with little information about whether invoices for past work will be paid.

The decision has implications for US farmers, furniture makers, airline carriers, and hundreds of other US organizations that sell products or services to the government agency. In fact, USAID rules require a range of purchases — including food, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and plane tickets — to prioritize US vendors.

"Foreign aid, with a few exceptions for close allies such as Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, is not transferred into the treasuries of aid recipient governments," Andrew Natsios, a former administrator of USAID, said in a February 13 testimony before Congress. "Instead, it is spent through international and local non-governmental organizations, US and local universities, for-profit development contractors, and civil society organizations."

Until now, USAID had maintained a staff of about 10,000, according to the Congressional Research Service, relying on contractors to do the bulk of its work.

The administration's decision to defund USAID — Elon Musk said this month that he'd "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper" — has led to the layoff or termination of thousands of US employees at companies that contract with USAID, according to a USAID tracker set up by Molloy Consultants, a global health consulting group.

The White House and the State Department didn't immediately respond to requests for comment about the impact on US workers. "We're not trying to be disruptive to people's personal lives," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on February 7. "We're not being punitive here."

Pete Marocco, the deputy administrator for USAID, said in a February 10 affidavit that the pause was necessary in order to enable "a thorough review of USAID's operations."

North Carolina takes a hit

The impact of the funding freeze was immediate in North Carolina, one of the top state recipients of USAID dollars. The state is home to organizations that received more than $2.2 billion from USAID, according to Molloy Consultants, placing it fifth among US states.

"I will be very blunt. The freeze has been devastating," Brianna Clarke-Schwelm, the executive director of the North Carolina Global Health Alliance, told Business Insider. "Already we are seeing mass furloughs and mass layoffs. Hundreds of people have already lost their jobs."

The impact "will reach people in every corner of our state," she said.

North Carolina is Trump country; the president won the state in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and he visited it at least 11 times during last year's campaign, more than almost any other state.

Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, both Republicans, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment for this story. Both senators have fielded calls and emails from constituents, often responding with impersonal emails, according to some recipients who spoke with BI.

"Your government has a responsibility to review every taxpayer dollar and ensure that it is spent wisely and in the best interest of the American people," one of Budd's emails read.

Rep. Valerie Foushee, a Democrat whose district includes Durham, said she'd heard from hundreds of constituents concerned about the funding freeze.

"I am deeply concerned regarding the illegal actions taken by the Trump Administration to dismantle our leading foreign aid agency," Foushee said by email. "Trump's detrimental Stop Work Order will have widespread repercussions across our state, affecting farmers, local businesses, researchers, medical professionals, biotech companies, and many others. In my district alone, thousands of workers across numerous international development organizations will be affected."

North Carolina's Raleigh-Durham metro area is home to two of the six largest global recipients of USAID funds between 2013 and 2022, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. FHI 360, a Durham-based nonprofit focused on health, nutrition, and economic opportunity, received $3.79 billion during those years, and RTI International, a research institution based in Research Triangle Park, took in $2.31 billion.

On February 6, FHI 360 said it would furlough 36% of its US staff, including 200 in North Carolina. The spokesperson Jennifer Garcia declined to elaborate on the announcement.

A week later, RTI disclosed temporary layoffs for 226 of its staff, including 61 in North Carolina. "RTI deeply values every staff member," CEO Tim Gabel said in a press release. "The projects our international development staff implement provide essential contributions that support America's leadership in creating a more prosperous, safe, secure and resilient world."

Two others among the top organizations receiving USAID funds, Chemonics and DAI, also employ workers in the state. Chemonics has furloughed 600 staff and placed another 300 on limited work hours, a spokesperson told CNN. DAI furloughed about 380 staff, 60 to 70% of their workforce, a spokesperson told the network.

As of Monday, at least 12,700 contractors who relied on USAID funding had been furloughed or put on leave, according to numbers compiled by Molloy Consultants from impacted organizations.

The global health industry is a significant driver of North Carolina's economy. The industry accounted for roughly 170,000 jobs in the state and added almost $32 billion in value to the state's economy, according to a 2022 report commissioned by NCGHA. That's about 4% of the state's GDP, per data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

For those who have lost their jobs or been furloughed, the past few weeks have been traumatic. Many told BI they were applying for unemployment benefits. One person decided to cancel plans to buy a new North Carolina-made couch after being put on furlough.

"I don't think folks realize how big of an industry this is for America," said one person who asked not to be named to avoid professional repercussions. "Just in the Triangle you have two of the largest implementers in the world, and then countless NGOs impacted. Multiply that by 49 states. How many jobs are we talking about here?"

Last April, the US Department of Agriculture said it would spend $1 billion to buy US commodities for USAID to ship overseas. A USAID fact sheet says the agency partnered with at least 27 North Carolina farmers.

Small businesses have also been impacted. In December, a government official said the agency sent $1 billion to US small businesses in the last fiscal year.

Support for small firms has included State Department purchases of at least $7.5 million in furniture over the past eight years from North Carolina manufacturers to fill embassies, missions, residences, and USAID facilities, according to data from usaspending.gov.

"If this continues, 90% of the NGO and contractor community will cease to exist within another month," Natsio said in his testimony last week. "NGOs, many of them faith-based, Christian organizations, will be forced to shut down programs, lay off staff (which many have already been forced to do), and ultimately close their doors."

The USAID spending freeze has also affected the state's universities, as the University of North Carolina system, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Duke University had all received USAID funding.

In 2023, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Carolina Population Center received a $90 million grant from USAID to monitor global health. Between 2003 and 2015, the center's Measure Evaluation program received an additional $500 million from USAID to handle data collection.

UNC Chapel Hill has 10 stop work orders from USAID, including three in which the university is a direct recipient and another seven in which it is a subrecipient, the spokesperson Cat Long said by email. The university had received $18.3 million in research awards this fiscal year and $17.5 million in the previous year.

"The University is awaiting more information from federal agencies to determine the long-term impact on these programs and their staff," she said. 

NC State "is working with various partners to gauge potential impacts of any changes to federally funded sponsored programs," the university spokesperson Mick Kulikowski said by email.

Chemonics, DAI, and the Small Business Association for International Companies, a Raleigh-based trade association with more than 150 members, were among eight plaintiffs who filed suit on February 11 to challenge the administration's freeze. Two days later, a federal judge in Washington, DC, issued a temporary restraining order, giving the administration five days to restart funding.

Organizations representing USAID workers have also filed suit.

Meanwhile, uncertainty reigns.

A senior staff member at one of the major North Carolina organizations funded by USAID said organizations still didn't know whether invoices for work performed in November, December, and January would be paid. Another said organizations were furloughing staff simply because they didn't have any cash on hand to pay them.

Multiple furloughed employees of USAID contractors said their projects were heavily audited, and they pushed back on the idea that there was widespread wasteful spending.

"We are one of the most successfully audited organizations," said one person who'd been furloughed. "Monitoring and evaluation is such a big part of every project."

If you work for USAID, a USAID contractor, or another government agency affected by furloughs, please contact Dakin Campbell at [email protected] or text him securely at dakin.11 on the Signal app.

• Recent MBA graduates are having a harder time finding jobs than a couple of years ago.
• A white-collar hiring slowdown has impacted MBA graduates at schools like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
• We asked economists whether the hiring landscape could improve in the years to come.

The white-collar job market has gotten so competitive, that even MBA graduates — once thought of as having a leg up in hiring — are struggling to land jobs. Their troubles could stick around for a while.

Since July, Joshua has worked at Starbucks while he looks for a marketing job. In the fall of 2023, his contract position at PlayStation was cut and, despite working with a recruiting agency, he still hasn't landed a job in his chosen industry.

"I'm an MBA graduate in his 30s, living paycheck to paycheck, watching what feels like the rest of my colleagues and classmates move forward with their lives," said Joshua, who earned his business degree from Santa Clara University in 2021. His last name is known to BI but is being withheld due to fear of professional repercussions.

Job acceptance rates at some of the top business schools have declined in recent years. Much of it likely has to do with a slowdown in white-collar hiring overall, but other evidence suggests companies are hiring fewer MBAs. After all, they may require a higher salary than their peers at a time when companies are pivoting to invest in technology that promises to do the job cheaper than any human — no matter their degree level.

MBA graduates' job-acceptance rates are down in a slowing job market

Business Insider looked at the job acceptance rates three months post-graduation at the top 15 business schools from US News and World Report's 2024 ranking — and focused on the nine MBA programs with publicly available data going back eight years and Harvard, with data going back six years.

At eight of the 10 schools, the class of 2024's job acceptance rate was the lowest.

Economists told BI that elevated interest rates and companies' investments in artificial intelligence are among the factors that have led to slower hiring for MBA graduates.

Gracy Sarkissian, associate dean of Columbia University's career management center, said that while the three-month post-graduation job acceptance rate for the school's MBA graduates fell in 2023, employment reached pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.

Dartmouth, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia didn't respond to requests for comment. Duke and Harvard declined to comment.

The usual suspects for MBA hiring — consulting firms and Big Tech — are hiring fewer of them, the Wall Street Journal reported in January.

It's all part of an overall hiring slowdown. US businesses are hiring at nearly the lowest rate since 2013, per Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

While the overall US unemployment rate remains low compared to historical levels, many people who need a job are dealing with a considerably tougher market than a few years ago.

Are you an MBA graduate looking for a job? Are you comfortable sharing your story with a reporter? Please fill out this form.

Higher interest rates and economic uncertainty have slowed hiring for white-collar roles

Elevated interest rates have contributed to slower hiring in industries such as finance, tech, and consulting — sectors that attract many MBA grads, Kory Kantenga, head of economics, Americas at LinkedIn, told BI. Instead, healthcare, government, and hospitality have been dominating hiring since 2023.

In addition to higher interest rates, uncertainty about Trump administration policies and the impacts of AI have led some businesses to be more cautious about expanding their workforces, said Audrey Guo, an assistant professor of economics at Santa Clara University. She added tech companies that hired workers in droves during the pandemic — only to lay off many workers in recent years — may be looking to avoid this cycle in the current climate.

Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab, said some companies could be slowing hiring because they're waiting to see if the economy can stick a "soft landing" — in which inflation comes down, the unemployment rate doesn't spike, and a recession is avoided. She said job openings for finance and tech roles on Indeed have fallen considerably from their peaks in 2022, to below levels seen in February 2020.

"If I were looking for a job in banking and finance or software development, I would expect it to definitely take longer than it did in 2022," Shrivastava said.

Finding work can be challenging even in sectors with more job openings. This includes management roles, where openings listed on Indeed are roughly 9% higher than they were in February 2020.

Dan Trujillo is trying to find one of those management roles. He was laid off in January from his role as a director of customer experience at a manufacturing company. He earned his Executive MBA from the University of Colorado a year earlier and said he struggled to land his previous job. "I applied to somewhere between 25 and 30 positions without ever hearing anything back other than a rejection email," said Trujillo, who's in his mid-40s and based in the Denver area.

Guo said some employers could be slowing hiring as they monitor the potential of AI tools in the workplace. Additionally, some companies' significant investments in AI could also be leaving them with less money to put toward hiring workers.

"I think the roles where we're seeing the biggest declines in demand now tend to be the ones that have really high returns to using AI," said Lisa Simon, chief economist at the workforce analytics company Revelio Labs. She cited software engineers and data analysts as two examples.

Rate cuts and an uptick in retirements could help job seekers

Looking ahead, Kantenga said that future Federal Reserve interest rate cuts could help improve labor market conditions for MBA graduates. CME FedWatch, which projects interest-rate changes based on market activity, forecasts a nearly 84% chance rates will be lower by the end of the year. However, Kantenga said uncertainties tied to the Trump administration could lead some employers to slow hiring until they have a clearer sense of what policies will be implemented.

Additionally, some changes to the current labor market could work in the favor of MBA graduates. Satyam Panday, chief US and Canada economist at S&P Global Ratings, said that an uptick in baby boomer retirements in the coming years could create a gap in the workforce that AI likely won't be able to fill — which could make it easier for some MBA graduates to find work. While some companies may be able to get by with fewer workers, Guo said they'll still need to invest in their leaders of the future.

"Companies will need to think about how to still preserve a pipeline of new workers so that, eventually, when the senior people retire or need to be replaced, there still is some pipeline of people with that experience," she said.