00:00A wave of redundancies are rolling through universities.
00:06We are in what we call a COVID-2 era.
00:08Hundreds of jobs are on the line or have been lost across Queensland.
00:13Nearly 50 roles have been axed at Griffith Uni.
00:16It's about the same for James Cook University, on top of 17 announced earlier this month.
00:22The National Tertiary Education Union says its QUT members report the uni has asked for
00:2970 voluntary redundancies.
00:31UniSQ is yet to detail exactly how many, but it has a $32 million budget hole.
00:38Our unofficial figure at the moment is sitting between 80 to 85 staff.
00:43UniSQ said decisions have not been made on specific staff numbers during the consultation
00:49phase, but 27 staff chose to bring their retirement forward as part of a financial incentive scheme.
00:57Staff say they're living in limbo.
00:59They don't know if they'll have a job after Christmas and they don't know if they'll have
01:02a job leading up to Christmas.
01:04The Griffith Vice-Chancellor says rising costs and problems processing international student
01:10visas are to blame.
01:11International students are a really critical part of being able to pay the costs of a university.
01:16Griffith is only seeing 10 to 15 visas processed a week at the moment.
01:20The Federal Education Minister says the current visa policy, which prioritises international
01:26students applying at larger universities, has created an unfair system and regional
01:31unis are suffering.
01:33A new bill set to cap international student numbers from next year is being hailed as
01:38the solution, but some larger universities say this would destroy their bottom line.
01:44Griffith University says until visa issues are fixed, further redundancies can't be ruled
01:50out.
01:51It's impossible to make promises until we see whether the legislation goes through.
01:55WUT was contacted for comment.
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