University redundancy figures high at 280-plus

More than 280 people have been made redundant from the University of Otago, with almost half happening this year, figures show.

Figures released to Stuff under the Official Information Act showed 282 staff had been made redundant since 2014.

Of those, 217 were general staff and 65 were academic staff.

Almost half of those made redundant – including 19 academic staff and 121 general staff, which included some people who had not yet left, were in 2018.

This year’s redundancy figures were ‘‘abnormally high’’ due to the university’s voluntary redundancy process, a spokeswoman said.

Redundancy payments for 2018 had been forecast to cost $5 million. ‘‘This is not expected to increase in 2019, however the amount is unknown at this stage,’’ she said.

Last month Stuff revealed the tertiary institution spent $11 million on redundancies in five years, with the highest amount, $3.7m, paid out this year.

While that number ‘‘appears high’’ the spokeswoman said, ‘‘it is a known cost of restructure’’.

‘‘We would expect these costs to be recovered quickly as the overall process will result in savings and changes to processes that bring greater efficiencies, and improved services to students and staff.’’

Last month Tertiary Education Union organiser Shaun Scott, of Dunedin, said the number of redundancy payouts should taper off, as a large number of support staff had either taken, or been made redundant, after a support services review.