It’s Squid Game at VUW after 74 Staff Members Granted Voluntary Redundancy

Words by Niamh Vaughan (she/her) 

Seventy-four staff members have successfully applied for voluntary redundancy at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. The university has released a consultation document to staff detailing the roles, programmes, and academic areas that may be targeted for cuts and redundancies. 

The university has faced very public financial challenges, forecasting a $33 million deficit in revenue this year alone. It was announced that the voluntary redundancies have aided the university in reaching one-third of its cost saving goal. 

A spokesperson for VUW announced, “The university has [...] identified a number of programmes that have the potential to become sustainable using the additional government funding [and they] will be put on a managed pathway to achieve sustainability.” 

These programmes include Midwifery and Workplace Health and Safety in the Faculty of Health; Secondary Teaching in the Faculty of Education; Earth Sciences (Physical Geography, Geology, and Geophysics) and Physics in the Faculty of Science; the English Language Institute (School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) and History in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Thanks to voluntary redundancy and a $12 million funding boost from the government, the initial number of expected job cuts has lowered from 275, and targeted programmes in the university have gone from about 80 to 34. Whilst this, alongside the courses that have been recovered, is an improvement, the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) says there are still about 70 more jobs to go. 

According to TEU organiser Nicki Wilford, “Bringing [that number] down is huge, but [the TEU] can’t go out and say this is a win.” She predicts the ‘selection pools’ required to determine which staff will stay on will be similar to the popular Netflix Show Squid Game. “[It’s] going to be absolutely hideous.” 

In an area of the university required to cut back two senior lecturers with currently three employed in the role, the three staff members will have to compete for one job. “People [will] have to be super competitive with each other. And even worse, of course, many of them will be union members competing against other union members,” Wilford explains. 

“[A staff member might choose voluntary redundancy] to avoid that. I know a lovely professor who's taking [redundancy] to save someone else's job.”

The consultation programme began on 2 August, and will continue through to 5 September. Final decisions will be announced on 21 September, the day after enrollments for 2024 courses open. For staff affected by the job cuts, reapplication to roles elsewhere in the university will commence throughout October.