Unitec working to minimise redundancies

9 November 2006

Unitec working to minimise redundancies

Unitec New Zealand is looking at strategies to minimise the impact on staff members within its School of Language Studies after an internal review found that there were 15 surplus staff positions in the school.

Unitec CEO Dr John Webster said that a review had been undertaken in 2005, following a sharp decline in international student numbers. Steps had been taken to reduce costs, but the impact on staff had been reduced so far as practicable. In 2006, international numbers had stabilised, but domestic student numbers had fallen. Immigration levels were lower and labour shortages had led employers to accept workers with more basic standards of language proficiency.

In planning for 2007, with inflation running well ahead of government funding rates, and the need to offer staff members a reasonable salary increase, it had become clear that a further review of the School of Language Studies was inevitable. The aim has been to maintain core capacity in an important discipline, while offering the School genuine medium-term stability.

“While the review team has determined that there are 15 surplus positions in the School of Language Studies, we naturally hope that some, and hopefully most, of the surplus can be handled by strategies other than involuntary redundancy.”

ENDS

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