In Features this morning Frank Larkins (Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education) sets out 2019-21 FTE job losses for casuals and total staff at hardest-hit institutions

Some of which are sadly spectacular, notably La Trobe U, where there was a 59 per cent decrease in FTE casuals and a 20 per cent drop in total staff. “These are very high attrition numbers that must seriously impact on university operations,” Professor Larkins suggests.

But staff cuts in multiple universities were not necessarily caused by the pandemic.

“There is almost no correlation between the total staff losses shown in the figures and the percentage reduction in overseas student enrolments. Some universities have used additional opportunistic strategies to determine their staff reduction policies within the pandemic environment,” he writes