Before the budget, we had already reduced our structural deficit by $40 million, which represents two-thirds of the total deficit. We plan to reduce the remaining $26 million over three years.
On April 10, when we announced the impact of our measures to our employees, we had already informed those who might potentially be affected by the next round of cuts.
In the first round of cuts, that is to say the first $40 million, 360 permanent positions were eliminated. At the time, important events such as the Olympic Games and the Shanghai Expo, which had limited funding, were coming to an end. That represented 140 more positions. So we had already cut 500 positions before the budget.
Now with regard to the budget itself, the total deficit is 38 positions. The largest portion of our funding is allocated to programs. So the budget itself does not have a major impact. However, we must cut 245 more positions to eliminate the rest of the structural deficit, that is $26 million. We have striven to cut all possible vacant positions at every stage. We put our employees back in positions that were going to be vacated for transitional reasons.
With regard to the first round of cuts, although we cut all those positions, we have thus far been able to reassign all but three of our employees. We will make the same effort to reassign as many employees as possible in the next round.
The budget affects 38 positions, and eliminating the remaining $26 million of the structural deficit means another 245 positions. We are talking about approximately 280 positions. We have been able to limit the impact of those cuts to 175 employees, and that figure will continue to fall.