Academics sound alarm after NSW universities scrap thousands of jobs

Sydney Morning Herald – Sat, 23 Apr 2022 11:30:00 GMT – 0

The loss of thousands of jobs across the NSW university sector during the pandemic is placing strain on teaching and research, as campuses return to face-to-face learning and welcome back international students, academics warn.

The latest federal government data shows there were 3237 fewer permanent and fixed-term contract staff in the state’s universities in 2021 compared to 2020, following a major wave of redundancies brought about by COVID-19.

But unions claim universities used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to make cuts they had been wanting to do for years.
The University of NSW recorded the highest number of staff cuts in the country, with 726 fewer full-time equivalent jobs in 2021 than the previous year, representing a 10 per cent drop in employees.

School of Medical Sciences Associate Professor Richard Vickery, the acting UNSW branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union, said university staff were struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He said his department lost seven out of 60 staff which is broadly replicated across most sectors of the university.

“For example, the person I share an office with is gone, I have an [Australian research Council] grant - one of the co-chief investigators has gone which is making it difficult to complete that part of the project,” he said.

“The workloads for the remaining staff have escalated significantly.”

The 726 jobs lost at UNSW was higher than the 493 slated by the university in July 2020, which it said at the time were necessary due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19 and a $370 million budget shortfall.

A university spokesperson said the staff cuts over the 2020 to 2021 period was proportionate and comparable to all other universities.

The spokesperson said a significant portion of the job losses came from a slowdown in hiring to fill vacancies.

“We have resumed hiring and at this stage we have no plans for job cuts,” the spokesperson said.

The education department data does not provide the full picture of university job losses as it only includes an estimate of the casual job cuts on a full time equivalent basis provided by universities.

That data predicts a 15 per cent drop in casual FTE positions in Australian universities between 2020 and 2021.

Academic Dr Damien Cahill, National Tertiary Education Union NSW secretary, said the job losses in NSW went far beyond the impact of any drop in international enrolments thanks to the pandemic.

“We believe university managers used this as an opportunity to pursue disproportionate cuts they’ve wanted to do for years,” he said.

“A lot of the work that was being done has now been transferred to the staff who remain.”

Research from the education policy think tank the Mitchell Institute late last year suggested Australia and New Zealand could expect the flow of international students to return to pre-pandemic levels when international borders reopened.

At The University of Technology Sydney, 489 permanent or fixed term staff last year left the institution, amounting to a 12.6 per cent drop in employees.

The institution said it had lost at least half a billion dollars in revenue over the course of the pandemic, largely due to the loss of international student fees and commercial revenue.

“Care has been taken to minimise any effects on students, or other staff,” a spokesperson said.

“Significant further job losses are not envisaged, because the steps the university has taken to date to make its costs sustainable should enable it to weather the difficult years ahead, with 2022 and 2023 expected to be the most challenging financially, but neither does it foresee being able to reinstate positions.”

University of Technology Sydney Students’ Association president Anna Thieben said students had already felt the effects of the jobs cuts which had been a detriment to their education.

“I don’t think there are plans to be reinstating staff in any manner which is obviously incredibly disappointing,” she said.

“In my own classes I can definitely feel it - we’ve had lots of labs that have been cut shorter because there are less staff and a lot of classes that were originally tutorials were combined into larger seminars.”

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Academics sound alarm after NSW universities scrap thousands of jobs

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