Projecting $50M deficit, Mohawk College president warns of layoffs, blames government policies

The president of Mohawk College says a drop in international student enrolment means the school is facing a projected $50-million deficit in the 2025-2026 school year. That's going to mean layoffs, he told workers in an Oct. 30 memo.

Mohawk's president Paul Armstrong told CBC Hamilton that when he started his role in July, he already planned a "deep review" of college programming, but that government policy changes forced an even deeper look.

"What we were seeing is a dramatic reduction in the level of international enrolments that we can anticipate," he said, and that will result in a gap between revenue and expenses. 

Heather Giardine-Tuck, president of Local 240 of the Ontario Public Sector Employee Union (OPSEU), said "people are very worried about their programs, about their students." She represents about 1,000 faculty, librarians and counselors at Mohawk.

Susan Lau represents about 1,000 support staff in OPSEU Local 241 — a group including people who work in information technology, facilities services and campus stores. She said the situation has caused "a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress and a lot of worry."

A "feeling of understaffing and high workloads," has been an issue for the past five years, she said, and members worry about that getting worse.

In an email, Mohawk spokesperson Bill Steinburg told CBC Hamilton that in fall 2023 the college had 7,309 international enrolments. This past fall, it had 6,166. Enrolment represents the number of sections students are taking, not the number of students. 

As of last week, the college had received 3,065 international applications. At the same time last year, it had received 5,691.

"Our financial challenge will result in impacts in every single area of the college," Armstrong said. "There will be program reductions. There will be service reductions. There will be staffing position eliminated within all of our three employee groups: administrative, support staff and faculty."

Mohawk says it has 1,200 full-time employees and up to 1,250 part-time employees, though that number changes each semester. There are 14,694 students enrolled in programs this semester. 

WATCH | Provincial underfunding and federal changes to blame for Mohawk College's troubles, president says

"We will do everything we can to eliminate salary costs appropriately before we get to the point that we'd be issuing layoff notices to anyone," Armstrong said. 

He said it's too early to know how many layoffs there will be, partly because the college has offered up early retirement packages with a Nov. 15 deadline and doesn't know how many people will take them.

Neither union blames the administration for the financial strife. "The situation that we're in is the result of chronic underfunding from the provincial government," Giardine-Tuck said.