Coronavirus: Deakin cuts first as universities brace for cull of 21,000 staff

The first wave of COVID-19 job losses has hit universities, with Deakin University announcing that 400 jobs would go.

Deakin University vice-chancellor Iain Martin.

The first wave of COVID-19 job losses has hit universities, with Deakin University announcing that 400 jobs would go, the first of an estimated 21,000 ­expected to disappear because of falling numbers of international students.

Deakin, like at least 10 other universities, has rejected a Nat­ional Tertiary Education Union job-saving plan that offers pay cuts for a year in return for more job ­security, which has heightened fears of Australia’s 130,000 university employees that large job losses are imminent.

Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin told staff 100 positions would go by not filling ­vacancies, leaving 300 jobs to be cut — about a 3 per cent reduction in the university’s workforce. He said the university faced a revenue drop of between $250m and $300m next year, because of the loss of international students and falling investment returns. Deakin’s annual budget is about $1.3bn.

NTEU national president Alison Barnes said the federal government could have saved the Deakin jobs if it used some of the $60bn saved by the error in estimating the cost of JobKeeper to extend the JobKeeper scheme to universities such as Deakin.

Public universities like Deakin have a tougher hurdle to cross than other similar-sized organisations to get JobKeeper subsidies. Instead of showing a 30 per cent or 50 per cent revenue loss over one month — the standard that applies to other employers –— universities have to demonstrate that loss over the first six months of this year. “Dan Tehan and Josh Frydenberg could have saved these jobs (at Deakin) with the stroke of a pen using the $60bn they thought they had already spent, but now more than 300 families will be in line at Centrelink instead of at work,” Dr Barnes said.

“Deakin is a major employer in regional Australia and the impact of this will be disproportionate for a place like Geelong.”

Universities Australia estimates universities will lose up to $4.6bn revenue this year as a result of COVID-19, leading to the loss of 21,000 full-time jobs in 2020, with more to follow next year.

So far, universities are showing reluctance to use the job-saving plan, called a job protection framework, which was hammered out in talks between the NTEU and the university employer group, the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association. So far, 11 universities have indicated they won’t use the framework, with only three in favour of using it.

The framework, which must be approved by a majority of a university’s staff, allows pay to be cut by up to 15 per cent for 12 months, in return for a commitment not to stand down workers without pay and to limit job losses.

Vulnerable casual workers would be protected from pay cuts.

Professor Martin told staff that using the framework would have constrained Deakin University’s ability to make the best decisions over the longer term.

“The approach we are proposing, combining debt and cost savings, will ensure that Deakin is in the best position to preserve as many jobs as possible in the ­medium term, rather than simply seeking to get to a notionally balanced budget over the next 12 months,” he said.