NO JOB CUTS - NO HIRING FREEZE

We oppose job cuts at the University of Sydney heading into 2025 and call for an end to the hiring restrictions that were announced today.

Vice Chancellor Mark Scott wrote to staff on Tuesday 13 August advising that the University Executive was considering “how we would deal with the impacts of the financial shortfalls” caused by a reduction in international student numbers from January 2025. He also flagged that the executive would be “monitoring continuing and fixed term recruitment and contract extensions in their area” and “reconsidering the scope of our activities in 2025.”

In practice, this means job cuts, hiring freezes and restructures. 

There is no excuse for any of this. The University made a $351 million dollar surplus last year, $298 million in 2022 and over a $1 billion in profit in 2021. In a recent Town Hall, VC Mark Scott assured staff the University had set aside sufficient funds to support future building projects. 

Instead of bloated executive salaries and splashing cash on buildings and marketing, this money should be used to provide staff with job security and help long term casualised and fixed-term staff transition to secure jobs. There must be no cuts to First Nations jobs and instead, hiring should ensure employment targets are met. Additional hiring is urgently needed to address chronic understaffing and to bring workloads under control. These are essential measures to improve staff wellbeing and to ensure that students receive a quality education and the support they need.

Staff are already overworked, underpaid and struggling with a cost of living crisis. Now the livelihoods of the people who ensure the University functions every day are being threatened. Job cuts affect everyone. The workload doesn’t just disappear when positions are cut. Instead, remaining staff are burdened with additional work without any additional pay. The only winner is the University’s bottom line.

We call on management to abandon any plans for cutting courses or jobs, remove the hiring restrictions and allow vacant positions to be backfilled.