Universities had record job losses, but not as many as feared – and the worst may be over

Many universities, facing revenue losses due to COVID-19, announced major staff cuts over the past two years.

Estimates of the job losses have ranged from 12,000 by October 2020 to as high as 35,000 in the year to May 2021.

These estimates drew on university announcements and a general ABS labour force survey. I explain the problems with these estimates in more detail here. Ideally, we should use statistics collected on a standard basis from all universities, such as the Department of Education, Skills and Employment’s higher education staff data, which had a long-overdue release this week.