STAFF at the University of Dundee have been warned of “inevitable” job losses as the educational institution faces a financial budget deficit of £30 million for this year.
Staff were informed by Principal Professor Iain Gillespie on Wednesday as he wrote to them stating there would be a “reduction in staffing levels” at the university, according to The Courier.
According to Professor Gillespie, despite attracting “record numbers” of fee-paying international students, the university has faced a “significant drop” in recruitment in 2024.
He went on to write that due to the drop in recruitment and other contributing factors, the University of Dundee is facing a budget deficit in the range of £25m-£30m for this financial year.
The professor went on to say there would be job losses despite a recruitment freeze, including filling current vacancies already being in place along with cutting operational expenditures.
The university employs around 3000 staff members and has more than 17,000 students.
Writing to the university staff, Professor Gillespie (below), warned the next few years will be a “very difficult period” and that redundancies will “address” the financial stability and long-term future of the university.
He said: “While we have done well in recent years to recruit record numbers of international students, a significant drop in recruitment this academic year, combined with other factors, means we are now planning for a significant deficit in this financial year.
“We now have measures in place to reduce our costs including a freeze on recruitment, including on filling vacancies for existing posts and reducing operational expenditure.
“However, even with these measures we could still be looking at a deficit for this financial year in the range of £25-£30m.
“Therefore, we must take further action now to address our financial stability and long-term future.
“Given the profile of our costs, it is inevitable this will mean a reduction in our staffing levels.”
The institute has an expenditure of around £320m from July 2023, according to its most recently published financial accounts.
According to reports international students pay more than four times as much in fees than the average tuition costs in the UK, with some being charged as much as £23,000 a year to study at the university.
“This will be a very difficult period, certainly for this financial year and next,” Professor Gillespie added.
“We must meet this challenge together as a mutually supportive community.
“The decisions we take will be in the interests of the future health and sustainability of the university but they will not, in many cases, be easy ones.
“I will keep (staff) updated on our progress as we work through this unprecedented set of challenges for our university and the wider higher education sector.”
One anonymous staff member told The Courier the letter “came out of the blue”.
“The unions have been taken by complete surprise, this really is a shock,” they told the newspaper.
“We’re all incredibly worried about what this will mean.
“Things are already running under quite a lot of fiscal constraint.
“Who knows what this will mean for teaching and for our students over the next year.”
