DD heard most of part time uni staff to be axed at her uni. Hearsay or should she be worried?

[drivinmecrazy]

DD about to enter second year at Royal Holloway. There has been some queries as to why her department haven't given students a complete breakdown of the grades as they might expect.
Her friend has received a reply that basically says "as you might be aware..." and continues to say how most of their part time and visiting lecturers have been made redundant.
DD is slightly shocked by this.
She's doing a JH and had already been informed that her languages tutor has left but was given no more info.
I'm hoping it may be that contracts will be reviewed and maybe it's all got lost in hearsay and rumour.
Should we be unduly worried?
TBH she was prepared for quite an upheaval but surely the uni isn't unique. Or is it??

I'd say it's entirely likely. Casual staff are going to be the first to go and many of ours won't be back this year. My teaching workload as permanent staff has been increased. So others like me will be under huge pressure to provide business as usual under very challenging conditions. I'd like to say students won't suffer but if their lecturers are exhausted (having not been able to take leave either many of us) then I wouldn't be surprised if we see cancellations due to staff stress and sickness this year. But unis are now just businesses. The gov made clear no bailouts or support under covid so we're just going to suck it up to keep jobs and keep viable.

Yes, this is likely to be the case. There are a number of hourly-paid teaching staff in most academic departments. The budget for this has been removed entirely where I work (top 10 university in the league tables) and they have all been let go. I am in the same position as Mumteedum, unable to take any annual leave this summer as I need to absorb other people's work and also devise online duplicates for all my modules for students who won't be able to attend in person in the autumn.

I'm so sorry for all the university staff having to deal with the fallout caused by a lack of joined up thinking by this government.
It's appalling that you and the students are left in this situation.
Good luck to all of you in the next academic year

Well it’s lack of students and money. No different to any company making people redundant. I hope you are sorry for everyone because it’s ultra tough out there and in the next few months it will become worse. The government cannot save every job.

It’s happened at my red brick university too, a lot of the contract and part time staff have been let go. I wouldn’t really say it’s got anything to do with the government; as a PP said, they can’t bail out/save every job.

The issue is that universities are now hugely reliant on foreign students paying high fees. If they don't come, they will lose a large chunk of their income overnight so there will clearly need to be cost reductions.

I suspect most Russell Group and highly ranked institutions will be ok as they will be able to find replacements for the students who don't take up their places. Lower/mid ranked unis like Royal Holloway will suffer more imo.

Imperial College, for example, has a high number of overseas students. Without taking highly qualified students from RG universities, I don’t see how they will fill their courses. So I’m not sure it will be non RG, I think everyone bar the top few will have problems and they will be robbing Peter to pay Paul. Many universities will be the Peters in this scenario!