The United Nations system will hemorrhage staff in the coming months. Reeling from U.S. funding freezes and cuts, U.N. officials are predicting hefty layoffs. The World Food Programme, one of the biggest humanitarian organizations, has warned it will cut a quarter or more of its staff. That amounts to at least 6,000 people. The head of the U.N. refugee agency told the Security Council earlier this week that he also foresees cuts affecting as much as “one-third of its capacity,” implying further layoffs.

This may be only the beginning of a broader process of U.N. reform and contraction. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has announced a system-wide review of budgets and mandates, and has told staff that he wants to reduce “bloat” around the organization’s bureaucracy. In New York and Geneva, even U.N. officials whose posts are not immediately on the chopping block expect the review to propose institutional mergers and measures that will cost more jobs.

While the scope of current and potential U.N. firings will leave many individuals adrift, they could also do more fundamental damage to the expertise and ethos of the organization’s staff. One of the U.N.’s enduring strengths is that it has nurtured an international civil service whose members are formally loyal to the organization rather than to individual states. Since the 1940s, U.N. officials have gone from servicing intergovernmental events to playing a leading role in refining concepts and operational models on issues such as peacekeeping, aid delivery and international development.