Lund, Skövde, Trollhättan, Uppsala. The list of university towns where university teachers and researchers lost their jobs due to redundancy during 2025 could be made longer than that. Last year, 309 members of teaching and research staff were made redundant at 24 different HE institutions. Three years earlier, the figure was 113 at 13 institutions, Universitetsläraren’s investigation shows.
The highest number of redundancies occurred at Uppsala University, totalling 295 since 2020. Last year, 67 staff members lost their positions at the institution. This is not unusual, but rather part of a natural flow, says Gustaf Floderus, HR specialist at Uppsala University.
“We distinguish between teachers and researchers, and the teachers are quite few [among those made redundant]. Only a couple during this period. However, regarding researchers, we have a flow where we issue redundancies almost every week.”
He points out that a significant proportion of researchers in Uppsala operate on external funding.
“When external funding runs out, those researchers are also made redundant,” says Gustaf Floderus.
In total, 2,457 employees have been made redundant at the 35 institutions due to a shortage of work. Of these, 1,045 belong to the teaching and research category.
Between 2020 and 2025 a total of 2,457 employees have been made redundant at the 35 higher education institutions due to lack of work. Of those, 1,045 were members of teaching and research staff.
Overall, 1,045 members of teaching and research staff have had to leave their positions due to redundancy since 2020. Out of 35 institutions, 27 have made at least one person redundant during the six years examined. Universitetsläraren also asked the institutions whether they plan to issue redundancy notices during 2026. Fifteen institutions answered yes.
Gustaf Floderus expects Uppsala University to remain at a similar level of redundancies in the coming years.
“We have had increased costs for premises, energy costs are rising, and we receive poorer compensation for those increases,” he says.
At Lund University, 196 people in the teaching and research category have been made redundant since 2020. In the last three years, 138 people have had to leave their positions.
“We are one of Sweden’s largest higher education institutions and have many teaching positions, so it is not surprising that we are among those with the most redundancies,” says Marie Härstedt, HR Director at Lund University.
The current funding model with a combination of direct government grants and external grants is significant because Lund University has a high degree of fixed-term external funding, she believes.
“Furthermore, if you look at the whole picture, we are, like everyone else, affected by an economic situation where departments need to be much more aware of their finances. That absolutely has an impact,” says Marie Härstedt.
Last year, 45 university teachers and researchers lost their jobs in Lund. Marie Härstedt predicts that the figure will land at a similar level this year as well as in 2027.
“Those are the indications we have, not least linked to economic conditions. We will see when the year is over, but we are calculating for something similar,” she says.
University West made two people in the teaching and research category redundant between 2020 and 2024, but last year, 21 lecturers and researchers had to leave their jobs. According to HR Manager Bettina Johansson, they needed to reverse a financial deficit.
“Many institutions have had a tight financial situation, and so did we. So, we simply needed to achieve a balanced budget for the years 2025 to 2026,” she says.
Increased salary and operating costs, combined with lagging government budget grants are the cause, according to Bettina Johansson.
“The increase in the grant is not as large as the rate of salary increases and other costs. This requires a certain level of efficiency,” she says.
The University of Skövde made 17 university lecturers and researchers redundant last year. In Skövde too, the main cause was a lag in the state budget grant, describes Ulrika Dagman, acting HR Manager at the University of Skövde.
“So, it is actually a shortage of funds we have, rather than a shortage of work,” she says.
Universitetsläraren has spoken with redundant staff from several different universities. Many criticise the employers’ handling of the redundancy processes. At some institutions, unions have also criticised how the employers managed the process.
As Universitetsläraren has previously reported, SULF has sued the University of Skövde, as they believe the HE institution has not followed seniority rules and the Employment Protection Act (LAS). A central dispute negotiation is currently underway with the Swedish Agency for Government Employers, where the union maintains that five employees were made redundant without objective grounds.
“We believe that the employer is departing from the law and the collective agreement in how the redundancy selection pools were put together. We also believe that the reassignment investigations are not entirely satisfactory and, above all, that they lack documentation,” said Angelica Lindlöf, chair of Saco-S at the University of Skövde at the time.
Universitetsläraren has spoken with several of those made redundant at the University of Skövde. Some describe a feeling that the employer took the opportunity to get rid of those they wanted to dismiss anyway, by partially manipulating the selection pools.
This is not correct, according to Ulrika Dagman, acting HR Manager.
“That is not how it works. That would not be professional. I cannot answer for their experience, but redundancy in the state sector is a very regulated and controlled process. And we have followed it to the letter,” she says.
Ulrika Dagman explains that the employer’s intention was to make the transition process as short as possible while remaining correct.
“It was important for us to have some momentum in this so that employees would not have to experience this uncertainty longer than necessary. You always want that in this type of process because it is an unpleasant situation for many,” she says.
At the University of Gothenburg, a central dispute is also ongoing between SULF and the Swedish Agency for Government Employers regarding redundancies. There, the union maintains that three people who were made redundant during 2024 lost their positions on incorrect grounds.
Similar disputes do not exist at University West. However, some of the former employees Universitetsläraren spoke with raised criticisms regarding the employer’s handling of the process. Some believe that the employer partially selected those to be made redundant in advance, and then designed the selection pools accordingly. Others express that the employer simply made mistakes in the process, which ultimately resulted in the wrong people having to leave their positions.
University West’s HR Manager Bettina Johansson recognises the picture of there being a certain dissatisfaction regarding the process.
“Naturally, it is regrettable that we even end up with redundancies and that employees must leave. But we are working to make the process as good as possible and to communicate what we can. A legally certain process has been a guiding star for us in this work. And I believe we have upheld that,” she says.
She does not agree that mistakes were made in the selection pools and says that there was no manipulation of them. They reviewed which tasks were affected by the surplus and constructed the selection pools based on that.
“We were very meticulous there and looked at it based on an assessment of who works with these tasks. Furthermore, I understand that when you are affected by redundancy, you may feel disappointed. But we have worked as legally securely as possible in this process,” says Bettina Johansson.
Neither University West nor the University of Skövde are among the fifteen institutions that indicated to Universitetsläraren that they are planning for redundancy notices in the near future.
“No, we do not believe so. It is not something we are discussing at all,” says Ulrika Dagman, acting HR Manager in Skövde.
