George Soros� foundation lays off 40% of workforce

New York, July 1 (IANS) George Soros’ Open Society Foundations will lay off at least 40 per cent of its staff amonth after the 92-year-old announced he handed the reins of the multi-billion-dollar foundation to his son, Alexander.

The job cuts were announced in a statement signed by Alexander Soros and the foundation’s president, Mark Malloch-Brown, reports CNN.

It said the foundation would undergo “significant changes” to its operating model.

“Through this new model, the Board aims to transform operations across the global network, with the goal of generating a nimbler organization better able to build on past achievements and confront urgent and emerging challenges,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations told CNN that implementing the organization’s new vision required “difficult decisions”, and that it planned to reduce its headcount by no less than 40 per cent globally.

Open Society Foundations currently has about 800 staff across the globe.

In June, the senior Soros, a Hungarian-born billionaire investor, philanthropist and contributor to liberal causes, announced that he had tapped his 37-year-old son as the organization’s new chair.

In an interview in the Wall Street Journal announcing the decision, Alexander Soros said he and his father “think alike”, but that he was more political than his father.

Alexander Soros also said that under his leadership, he planned focus the foundation more on US domestic politics.

He recently met US administration officials and liberal leaders of other countries, including Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to the Journal.

Forbes estimates George Soros’ net worth to be $6.7 billion, but he has donated significantly more than that -- $32 billion -- to his foundation since 1984, CNN reported.

The Soros’ nonprofit organisation is “the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights”, according to the foundation’s website.