Major UK college chopping 450 jobs – £25m financial savings wanted | UK | News | EUROtoday

Staff at Ulster University have been informed that as many as 450 positions are underneath menace because the establishment seeks to make financial savings of £25m.

The announcement comes because the college’s most up-to-date monetary accounts reveal it’s operating a deficit of £20.2m, regardless of recording an revenue of greater than £300m.

Employees had been notified of the potential redundancies throughout a gathering with Vice-Chancellor, Prof Paul Bartholemew, on Wednesday.

It is known that the college is looking for to scale back its workforce by voluntary redundancies, although workers had been warned that obligatory redundancies couldn’t be dominated out.

The college operates campuses in Belfast, Coleraine, and Derry, alongside a sports activities village on the former Jordanstown website and department campuses in London, Birmingham and Manchester. It additionally runs a world campus in Qatar.

Taking to social media, People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll stated: “This is a short-sighted and disgraceful decision. Ulster University should reconsider this.”

An Ulster University spokesperson stated: “Redundancies across the Higher Education Sector have become unavoidable. To date, more than 100 institutions across the UK have downsized their staffing complement.

“Ulster University has sought to carry off on making redundancies whereas persevering with to work with the Department for the Economy, by their evaluations, on doable adjustments to the HE funding mannequin in Northern Ireland.

“It has recently been made clear to us that a sustainable funding model is not going to be forthcoming, and regretfully, we must now act to reduce our costs.”