Permanent employment does little to shield Australian academics from fears of losing their job, particularly if they work in universities with high overseas enrolments.

An international study has found that Australians with ongoing academic jobs feel almost as vulnerable to employment ¡°shocks¡± as their casually employed peers.

The researchers analysed 2,888 pandemic-era survey responses from academics at seven Australian and seven Canadian universities, using self©\reported stress ¨C associated with the transition to Covid©\19 working arrangements ¨C as an indicator of job insecurity.

The analysis found that Australian respondents were generally more insecure about their employment status than Canadians. And unlike in Canada, permanent Australian academics felt only slightly more securely employed than casuals.

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Perceptions of precarity were highest at Australian universities where education exports comprised a significant share of revenue. ¡°Universities that depend on international students¡¯ fees are vulnerable to enrolment shocks that may induce them to hire or fire casual academics at short notice,¡± the researchers in the Industrial Relations Journal.

¡°Enrolments of international students are volatile; universities may not know how many academics they¡­need until the semester starts. Some students may arrive at or even after the start of each semester¡­although they have accepted a place in advance.¡±

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International tuition fees are ¡°symbolic of the neoliberalisation¡± of higher education, the paper posits. It says Australia has embraced ¡°academic capitalism¡± ¨C commercialised income streams?that compensate for declining state funding ¨C more fulsomely than Canada.

¡°These [study] results reflect the greater dominance of twenty©\first century neoliberalism, financialisation and managerialism in Australian universities than in Canada where public funding, unionism and the tenure system are more resilient,¡± the paper says.

While Australian university job losses during the pandemic reached tens of thousands, there are no reliable figures on exactly how many people lost their jobs or what proportion had supposedly ongoing jobs. Estimates range from 17,300 staff across all modes of employment to 36,000 people on casual contracts alone.

The paper notes that there is ¡°no consistent or accurate data¡± on employment contract status in either country¡¯s universities, although estimates of the casual proportion are far higher in Australia than Canada. Australia also relies more heavily on international education revenue.

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The paper says casuals are treated as ¡°peripheral and disposable¡± even though they are crucial to the academic capitalism business model. ¡°Casual labour¡­is cheaper and more easily dispensable in response to fluctuations in universities¡¯ incomes,¡± it explains.

Nevertheless, Australia¡¯s Covid-era jettisoning of academics exceeded financial need, the paper suggests. ¡°One Australian university leader¡­told one of the authors that under the cover of the pandemic, universities rapidly implemented organisational restructuring initiatives that they had long been contemplating.¡±

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The paper urges administrators to draw different lessons from the pandemic. ¡°Covid [should] prompt universities to implement more diverse and hence less risky funding sources and forms of ¡®recovery¡¯ that are more equitable, inclusive, sustainable, communal, humanistic and resilient.

¡°Casualised jobs are not decent work, and it is unfair that such workers bear much of the risk of the universities¡¯ entrepreneurial activities. Universities¡¯ rhetoric about¡­promoting the United Nations¡¯ Sustainable Development Goals (which include decent work) is inconsistent with the reality that universities depend to a great extent on casual employment.¡±

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com