Melbourne University has revealed plans to shed 540 jobs in a bid to save $70 million.
The university expects to lose many staff through “natural attrition” but conceded there may be some redundancies.
Vice-chancellor Glyn Davis delivered the “sobering message” to staff earlier today.
“We will focus on reducing the total number of casual and fixed term staff where we can and offer minimal redundancies,” he said.
The university also warned it could lose up to $70 million a year because of the changes outlined in the federal budget.
However, that figure did not include other measures such as the university’s capacity to raise fees under the proposed model, which has yet to pass the Senate.
The job cuts will come from professional staff with teaching and academic staff unaffected.
Professor Davis said the university had a turnover of 635 professional staff last year and 580 the year before.
The university plans to dedicate 80 per cent of the $70 million in planned savings to teaching, learning and research. It has also flagged plans to hire up to 300 academic staff because of the changes.
University management is aiming to reduce the 540 full-time equivalent positions by end of the next year.
The “business improvement plan” prompted staff protests on Wednesday.
The union’s Victoria division secretary Colin Long said the university’s business improvement program would lead to many student services being moved online.
“It seems that students at the University of Melbourne will actually be getting less, despite the massive increases to their fees,” he said.
The changes come amid warnings that student fees would need to rise by about 60 per cent in some courses because of federal government reforms to higher education outlined in the budget.
The university employed a management consulting firm to develop the business improvement plan.
