A North Queensland university is planning to slash 10 per cent of its workforce as student enrolment continues to plummet.
James Cook University (JCU) has revealed a proposal to cut about 130 jobs from its pool of 1,300 staff at its Townsville and Cairns campuses.
Vice Chancellor Simon Biggs said JCU had experienced a 25 per cent reduction in domestic students in past five years.
He said the job cuts would allow the university to claw back $11 million in salary costs annually.
"Simply put, our student load has been declining for some years and universities in Australia are paid according to the number of students they teach, but our staff load has not declined in the same period," Professor Biggs said.
"Eventually your costs catch up with your revenue and at some point you run the risk of becoming unsustainable if you don't take action."
The cuts are targeted at professional and technical staff, including those working in student administration, IT, finance and human resources.
"We're not reducing the capacity of our academic staff, so in terms of the availability of courses, programs, units for our students – that shouldn't change," Professor Biggs said.
Staff were briefed about the proposed redundancies at a forum on Thursday.
More cuts to come
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) representative Bronwen Forster, who works as a liaison librarian at the JCU Cairns campus, said she feared students would indirectly suffer.
"A lot of the job losses are behind the scenes, but that will still impact students," she said.
"It could impact on opening hours, it could impact on face-to-face services – students might be directed [online] rather than a real life person providing them assistance."
JCU has flagged more potential job cuts over the next two or three years.
"We're already cut to the bone, so I think if there are further redundancies that will definitely reduce services to students in some form," Ms Forster said.
JCU Student Association president Thomas Sherrington said he was "disappointed but not shocked" by the cuts.
"We're emerging out of this pandemic so we need all those staff doing their hard work behind the scenes to make this whole operation work the best it can," he said.
The NTEU has also threatened to take industrial action next month over pay and workload issues for academic staff.
Professor Biggs acknowledged JCU employees were among the worst paid university workers in the country
"I think we do need to offer a fair and reasonable pay rise, but if that pay rise is excessive, then that'll simply mean somewhere down the track, we'll have further challenges to our budget," he said.
