Adelaide University ‘considering’ cutting around 130 jobs to deal with $22 million black hole in 2022

Go8 member The University of Adelaide may have to cut roughly 130 jobs to address the loss of international student revenue as the global pandemic and lockdowns continue. Adelaide university’s vice-chancellor Peter Hoj invited staff to a forum yesterday to outline the university’s financial position. Following the forum, Høj sent an email to staff stating that the university was exploring several options to address the shortfall, the ABC reported. "My message to staff was one I found difficult and sad to deliver, and for many, it will not have been easy to hear, particularly so shortly after the measures our university took in 2020 with strong cooperation from staff," Høj said. "Unfortunately, the continuing impact of COVID-19 on the sector's future revenue from international students makes it critical for our university's students and staff – and for the state – that we address our looming financial shortfall to ensure our institution's future sustainability. "Due to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, under our current projections (moderate scenario) the university is facing a $22 million shortfall in 2022." More concerningly, Adelaide university’s VC said the current shortfall would grow to $47 million by 2023 if the situation is unable to be reversed. Høj added that the university will be trying to secure $20 million from new revenue sources and aiming to find approximately $30 million in additional savings. Up to nine options are being considered to alleviate the financial shortfall at the moment, with 130 full-time equivalent professional staff possibly on the chopping block. The number of academic positions to be terminated has not yet been determined, ABC said. Other ideas the university is contemplating are merging five faculties into three, exploring whether administrative services could be more efficient, identifying and evaluating underperforming courses, as well as sourcing new forms of revenue, A "greater drive in philanthropy" is also mentioned, ABC reports. It has also been reported that, If the proposed changes proceed, they will be implemented in mid-September. "Detailed decisions about how we address the proposed initiatives have yet to be finalised, and while we need to take urgent action, I also recognise that it may take some time for us to work through the complexity of our response," Høj said. "If the university proceeds with making changes, we will do so under the provisions of the enterprise agreement." The vice-chancellor also took aim at the government during the staff forum. “At the start of the year we were quite optimistic about where we were going, then at or on about the time that the (Federal) Treasurer announced the budget and the forward estimates for the budget two things became clear,” he said. “(One), the Government did not extend the $1 billion per annum supplementation of the research grants (and) two, the forward funding for the sector was not projected to increase and three it became very clear that the Government did not think the borders would open until mid-2022. “That is where we started to realise that the situation was more dire than even we had feared.” Branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Nick Warner was also critical of the government’s decision and sympathetic to the staff such funding shortfalls will affect. “Blame for this terrible predicament lies firmly at the feet of the federal government who have quite deliberately cut funding to the university sector for both teaching and research along with actively excluding universities from JobKeeper support last year when it shut borders to international students,” he said. “NTEU Adelaide acknowledges that the university has been upfront with staff about the situation and that the university has committed to further, extensive consultation with staff over the coming months. “We believe that listening to the views and ideas of staff is the only way for a path forward that minimises the pain that job losses will bring.”