RTI International lays off 120 more workers, most in NC, as cutbacks continue
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- RTI International cut 120 jobs Thursday, including 75 in North Carolina.
- Federal funding declines dropped NIH grants from $397M in 2024 to $59M in 2025.
- RTI workforce shrank 35% in 2025, affecting over 400 North Carolina employees.
Durham-based research nonprofit RTI International laid off approximately 120 more employees Thursday, including around 75 in North Carolina, as it continues to reduce staff following substantial funding cuts by the Trump administration.
“RTI’s next chapter will demand bold thinking and strategic agility,” RTI International CEO Tim Gabel said in a statement to The News & Observer. “We’re realigning our organization to lead with greater speed, enhanced collaboration, and tightened client focus, while ensuring that our scientific impact is amplified.”
This was the latest workforce reduction at RTI, an original Research Triangle Park tenant that entered this year as Durham County’s ninth-largest employer.
RTI offers expertise to a range of health, science, energy, labor, defense and political programs, both domestically and abroad. The U.S. government is its main client, have accounted for 84% of the nonprofit’s revenue in recent years. In 2023, roughly $168 million (or 10% of RTI’s revenue) came through the now-closed U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent financial audit shows. And last year, RTI received $397 million in National Institutes of Health grants compared to only $59 million so far in 2025, according to the department’s online database.
In March, RTI informed the N.C. Department of Commerce it had received “an unprecedented number of federally-funded project cancellations and work stoppages.” After more layoffs in May, the organization announced it had decreased its total headcount by 35% since the start of the year. In June, the organization reported having 1,885 employees based in the state, down from more than 2,400 two years ago.
So far in 2025, RTI job cuts have affected more than 400 North Carolina workers.
This summer, Gabel told The N&O he viewed commercial health and defense as two sectors with more reliable funding in the current political climate. “We have the biggest portfolio of work right now that we’ve ever had in the Department of Defense funding area,” he said. “And that’s in areas like health, like education, mental health for soldiers.”
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 6:20 PM.
