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By Suzanne Blake
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One of the largest school districts in California could be implementing major layoffs as it faces lower enrollment numbers and higher operating costs.
USA Today reported that the Los Angeles Unified School District may begin issuing potential layoff notices due to “dangerously high deficit numbers” of over $1 billion.
Why It Matters
Layoffs can indicate larger economic uncertainty. In the last year, the United States created 181,000 net jobs out of a total of 158 million jobs. Collectively, 2025 saw fewer additional jobs than during the Great Recession recovery period, despite the U.S. not currently being in a recession.
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For education specifically, this can reflect strained state budgets and inflationary pressures.
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What To Know
The Los Angeles Unified School District’s board is set to discuss potential layoffs on Tuesday.
Currently, the district has more than 83,000 employees, including teachers, administrators, and other support staff combined.
The potential layoffs could arrive as labor unions still negotiate with the district over class size and wage increases. Reports from the board indicate that roughly 2,600 contract management employees and certificated administrators could see the layoff notice come mid March.
School districts are required to alert employees of potential layoffs by March 15 for the following year under California law.
Another 657 central office positions were also identified for the potential layoffs, ranging from assistant area bus supervisors, gardeners, IT positions and hundreds of office technicians.
Notices do not necessarily mean an employee will be laid off in the next year, but they signal looming financial challenges that the district will have to navigate when planning jobs and salaries for the following school year.
Altogether, LAUSD is facing a projected deficit of $877 million for fiscal year 2026-27 and $443 million for 2027-28. Officials previously said this year that around 90 percent of all its revenue goes directly toward staff.
“The reduction in force — given the size of our financial outlook, given what most districts are facing in the state and given the vast majority of our resources are, as they should be, spend on staff — it will need to be done at some point,” Saman Bravo-Karimi, chief financial officer, said earlier this year.
What People Are Saying
Saman Bravo-Karimi, the district’s chief financial officer, said earlier this year: “The reduction in force — given the size of our financial outlook, given what most districts are facing in the state and given the vast majority of our resources are, as they should be, spend on staff — it will need to be done at some point.”
HR consultant Bryan Driscoll told Newsweek: “Workers in one of the largest school districts in the country should know that any coming layoffs are not a result of their performance. It's the result of politics, budgets, and years of structural underfunding colliding with shortsighted financial decisions. Employees should know three things: first, everything is negotiable, including severance and timelines; second, union protections and bumping rights matter; third, layoffs in public education rarely reflect your individual merit.”
What Happens Next
Driscoll said the Los Angeles Unified School District’s financial situation reflects larger strife within the U.S. job market.
“Zoom out and this reflects a job market that's increasingly unstable even in sectors once considered safe,” Driscoll said. “Now even publication institutions operate like private companies, cutting labor to close budget gaps rather than addressing long-term structural revenue problems.”
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