McGill University announces 100 layoffs to address $45-million deficit

Montreal’s McGill University has announced that it will be forced to layoff 99 employees to address a $45 million operating deficit.

In February, the institution announced that it would need to reduce its workforce by around 350 to 500 workers. At the time, McGill said that it had hoped it would be able to achieve this through attrition but that now, the layoffs are “unavoidable.”

On Wednesday, McGill employees received a memo from the university’s Provost and Executive Vice-President, Christopher Manfredi, and Administration VP Fabrice Labeau, announcing the layoffs.

“Unfortunately, as our people account for some 80 per cent of operating expenses,” the memo reads, “the University informed the Ministre de l’Emploi et de la solidarité sociale that this will include an estimated 99 layoffs university wide.”

The next two consecutive fiscal budgets will also reportedly be slashed by $16 million and $14 million.

The measures announced by the university include new initiatives to increase revenues, carefully planned cuts, and the suspension or downsizing of some activities, as well as the reduction of faculty and staff complement through attrition and now, layoffs.

‘Heartrending, but necessary’

Workers affected by the layoffs will be notified by end of April.

“The fact that this is necessary, doesn’t make it any easier,” the memo reads.

“The decision to lay someone off is heartrending, but it pales in comparison with the impact on the colleagues who will no longer be part of our teams. But this difficult period will not last forever. We will work hard to ensure that the McGill that emerges from this is stronger than ever.”

McGill has made it very clear that the cuts are in part due to the Quebec government’s decision to increase tuition for out-of-province students and to decrease enrolment revenue.

In a past statement, the university has pointed a finger at successive government decisions that “in just over a year, have clawed back enrolment revenues, reduced our capacity to recruit students from outside of Quebec, and decreased operating grants.

“It has taken more than two centuries to build this world-renowned university,” said the university in a past statement, “but just over a year for these decisions to harm it deeply.”