University staff in Italy ‘most likely to have secure contracts’

The proliferation of casual employment contracts in some higher education systems has long been a concern for university staff, and the issue has only become more worrisome during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Insecure workers in general have been more likely to face job losses and lost income over the past 18 months and they have also been more vulnerable to coronavirus infection.

But which countries provided the most job security for university staff going into the crisis? Analysis of data underlying the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings shows that employees at universities in Italy, New Zealand, Portugal and the UK were most likely to have secure employment contracts in 2019, with over 85 per cent of staff in those nations being on contracts lasting more than two years.

Browse the full Impact Rankings 2021 results

At the other end of the scale, university employees in two southern Asian countries – Malaysia and Pakistan – were most likely to be on insecure contracts, with less than a third of staff in those nations on contracts of more than 24 months.

The US was also towards the bottom of the list, with just 48 per cent of staff at American universities on secure contracts. This means that, together with Malaysia and Pakistan, the US is one of just three countries where less than half of university employees have job security.

However, the US was the second-most-improved country, with the number of employees on secure contracts increasing by 26 per cent between 2018 and 2019. The most-improved nation was Italy, which saw a 35 per cent increase in secure employment contracts year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the share of university staff with job security in India more than doubled from 24 to 51 per cent.

Just four nations had a higher share of staff on insecure contracts in 2019 compared with 2018: Iran and Turkey in the Middle East and Colombia and Chile in Latin America.

The analysis only included territories with at least five universities in the 2021 and 2020 editions of the Impact Rankings table on SDG 8: decent work and economic growth.

Overall, 69 per cent of university staff globally in 2019 were on contracts lasting more than two years, according to the data, up from 66 per cent the previous year. Next year’s ranking will reveal whether this trend continued or if rates declined during the Covid-19 crisis.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com