University of Technology Sydney (UTS) staff have reported experiencing high levels of psychological distress as they brace for 400 redundancies amid a broader cull of Australian university workers, according to a leaked survey.
The survey, obtained by ABC News of 380 workers by the National Tertiary Education (NTEU) found 35% were experiencing high levels of psychological stress.
"There's a lot of helplessness and uncertainty, and the thing that I want to draw out of here is people have this notion that's natural with change management," said Dr Hossai Gul, a UTS expert in change in complex systems.
This comes as UTS plans a massive restructuring dubbed the Operational Sustainability Initiative (OSI).
"The need to reduce expenditure is necessary because our revenue does not cover our ongoing operating costs. In 2024, revenue was A$1.3 billion against expenditure of $1.4 billion," a UTS spokesperson said.
"We cannot continue to absorb these losses — we need to reduce spending and maintain it to protect our core teaching and research."
Earlier this year, The Australian Financial Review revealed that while UTS has a revenue of $1.1 billion, the university plans to cut expenses by $100 million a year and make capital investments of $640 million over the next five years.
Gul said redundancies would result in the downgrading of important areas of scholarship and teaching at the university.
"That's at the core of helplessness and uncertainty. What do you say to something like that? When people are imposing that onto you?" she said.
"The area you've worked with for your whole life, to teach, is for no reason at all, no longer going to be taught and therefore you might be redundant and have your job cut."
UTS’s mass redundancies follow a trend of a quarter of Australian universities implementing huge cost-cutting measures.
An analysis by the Australian Financial Review found the combined restructuring of nine universities will slice $650 million from budgets and cut 2200 jobs.
This comes just four years after the sector experienced massive cuts during the pandemic, when 17,300 jobs were axed when the borders closed and stopped overseas arrivals.
