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TMCNet: Ivory towers safe havens for jobs: Most colleges avoid layoffs across region and nationally

[January 07, 2009]

Ivory towers safe havens for jobs: Most colleges avoid layoffs across region and nationally

(Times Union (Albany, NY) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 7--A national survey released this week found that most colleges have plowed through the beginning of the recession without laying off employees.

And the trend appears to hold true across much of the Capital Region's extensive higher education sector.

Eleven percent of colleges had laid off employees, according to a survey of more than 200 public and private four-year schools that the Chronicle of Higher Education and Moody's Investors Service conducted in December. More -- 26 percent -- were considering layoffs.

An informal Times Union survey of local colleges on Tuesday yielded the following results:

These schools said they hadn't laid off employees and don't plan to at this time: The College of Saint Rose (879 employees), Schenectady County Community College (444), Excelsior College (400), Albany Law School (164), Siena College (740), Union College (880) and the Sage Colleges (450).

A spokeswoman for Skidmore College, with 850 employees, said the school had no plans to lay off "full-time regular employees," leaving it unclear whether there might be others who don't fit that label who could be laid off.

University at Albany has not laid off any of its 3,000 employees, said spokesman Karl Luntta. But Luntta declined to comment on future plans because the 2009-10 budget process is not complete.

An exception to the overall trend is Troy's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which began layoffs last month that targeted 98 of its more than 1,800 employees.

The new survey suggests that colleges are generally not slashing jobs as deeply as other employment sectors. When the consulting firm Watson Wyatt recently surveyed 117 companies from a variety of industries, it found that almost 2 in 5 have already laid off employees and more than 1 in 5 plan to make layoffs in the next 12 months.

Goldie Blumenstyk, senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, said the college sector "tends to be a little less bottom-line than other industries."

"In other industries, companies announce layoffs and the stock price goes up," she said. In higher education, she said, a layoff announcement "isn't typically seen as a positive because colleges traditionally measure success by the programs they are able to add, not the cuts they've had to make."

But colleges are feeling the economic hardship in ways besides layoffs.

The new survey found that 5 percent of colleges had completely frozen faculty hiring and 43 percent had partially frozen it. Nearly 60 percent had a partial freeze for other staff positions.

Then there are delayed projects. From Marcus Buckley's office at The College of Saint Rose, Albertus Hall next door is visible. It's a workhorse academic building that has been renovated in stages, but Saint Rose has delayed plans for work on its lower floor, partly for logistical reasons, said Buckley, vice president for finance and administration. A planned library renovation has also been delayed.

He compared Saint Rose to a Florida resident who takes precautionary steps before a hurricane hits, not when it's right off-shore.

"What we're doing is preserving capital," Buckley said. "And we're doing that so that if the bottom really does fall out, and if some unforeseen enrollment disaster occurs, that we'll have the capital available, and that we'll be able to support operations without having to resort to layoffs. Preserving jobs is very, very important to us, because frankly it's our best resource."

Marc Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or by e-mail at mparry@timesunion.com.

To see more of the Albany Times Union, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.timesunion.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, Albany Times Union, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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