Job losses as La Trobe University income tanks

An expected revenue shortfall of between $165m and $200m next year has La Trobe University looking for major savings.

La Trobe University vice-chancellor John Dewar. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

An expected shortfall of between $165m and $200m on budgeted revenue next year has La Trobe University looking for voluntary redundancies and other ways of making major savings.

“I want to assure you that we will do everything we can to preserve employment at the univer­sity,” vice-chancellor John Dewar told staff in an email on Tuesday.

“But I must also be clear that we will not be able to make these ­savings without job losses.”

He said job cuts would be minimised if staff signed up to the Australian Universities Job Protection Scheme, to be announced later this week, which will include pay cuts and freezes, and a shift to more part-time work.

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Professor Dewar said 40 per cent of the university’s international students had failed to arrive this year or had returned home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said it couldn’t be ­assumed they would return in large numbers until late next year.

“Even then, it will take us a long time to rebuild numbers to where they were last year,” Professor Dewar said.

“Most predictions are that the numbers will never recover to those levels.”

The losses next year will come on top of a $120m to $150m shortfall on expected revenue this year. So far this year the university has found about $72m in cost savings and Professor Dewar warned that if the remaining gap was closed entirely through staff losses it would be equivalent to 200 to 400 jobs.

If La Trobe staff sign on to the job protection scheme being negotiated with the National Tertiary Education Union, it could contribute a further $30m in savings this year. However, next year the budget gap looks worse, estimated to be $80m to $115m, or 600 to 800 jobs, after accounting for the savings that flow on from this year’s measures. “We will inevitably become a smaller institution, but with the right strategy we can become a stronger one,” Professor Dewar said.