Downsizing, layoffs and cost-cutting policies have led to alarmingly high levels of work-related psychological distress in university staff, a new University of South Australia study has found.
Two-thirds, or 67 per cent of respondents, were classed as having ‘poor psychosocial safety’ at work, which means they were high or very high risk of mental injury stemming from work conditions.
Two in five, or 44 per cent, fall into the high or very high psychological distress category, which includes symptoms like tiredness, nervousness and depression.
Another two thirds reported high or very high emotional exhaustion and burnout, and 75 per cent said they consistently experience high work pressure.
I’m sure I’m not supposed to out myself as a data point in this study but damn is this prescient in SA’s HE context. Corporate bullshittery has ruined the bourgeois notion of academic freedom and narcissistic managers have destroyed the academy and my soul. And the academy was a racist, sexist cesspit before all this. Think about how much worse it is now we have a right-wing government and two oligarch vice chancellors enshittifying the institutions…