McGill University cuts 60 jobs as Quebec policies bite

McGill University in Quebec, Canada, has announced it recently laid off 60 people as it grapples with the financial fallout of government policies that it says could threaten its academic mission, writes Joe Friesen for The Globe and Mail.

The layoffs, which happened last month, were made public at a town-hall meeting on the university’s budget situation on Friday 16 May. The number of jobs lost was lower than earlier estimates published by McGill’s administration, which said in February that it would likely need to eliminate between 350 and 500 jobs through retirements and layoffs to address a projected budget shortfall. It had notified the province that approximately 99 of those jobs would be cut via layoffs.

Both McGill and Concordia University, Quebec’s largest English universities, are fighting with the province over a suite of measures that they say will significantly damage their finances. The government has said the moves were prompted by a need to address a threat to the primacy of the French language in Montreal.
Full report on The Globe and Mail site