It's job cuts on a scale that unions say has not seen since pandemic times. Hundreds of jobs have been axed or left in limbo in the lead up to Christmas at universities across Queensland. Problems recruiting international students and rising costs are being blamed.
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00:00A wave of redundancies are rolling through universities.
00:06We are in what we call a COVID-2 era.
00:08Hundreds of jobs are on the line or have been lost across Queensland.
00:13Nearly 50 roles have been axed at Griffith Uni.
00:16It's about the same for James Cook University, on top of 17 announced earlier this month.
00:22The National Tertiary Education Union says its QUT members report the uni has asked for
00:2970 voluntary redundancies.
00:31UniSQ is yet to detail exactly how many, but it has a $32 million budget hole.
00:38Our unofficial figure at the moment is sitting between 80 to 85 staff.
00:43UniSQ said decisions have not been made on specific staff numbers during the consultation
00:49phase, but 27 staff chose to bring their retirement forward as part of a financial incentive scheme.
00:57Staff say they're living in limbo.
00:59They don't know if they'll have a job after Christmas and they don't know if they'll have
01:02a job leading up to Christmas.
01:04The Griffith Vice-Chancellor says rising costs and problems processing international student
01:10visas are to blame.
01:11International students are a really critical part of being able to pay the costs of a university.
01:16Griffith is only seeing 10 to 15 visas processed a week at the moment.
01:20The Federal Education Minister says the current visa policy, which prioritises international
01:26students applying at larger universities, has created an unfair system and regional
01:31unis are suffering.
01:33A new bill set to cap international student numbers from next year is being hailed as
01:38the solution, but some larger universities say this would destroy their bottom line.
01:44Griffith University says until visa issues are fixed, further redundancies can't be ruled
01:50out.
01:51It's impossible to make promises until we see whether the legislation goes through.
01:55WUT was contacted for comment.