KYOTO (Kyodo) Kyoto University will not renew five-year employment contracts for about 100 part-time workers when they expire in fiscal 2010, university officials said Friday.
The step apparently reflects the elite state-run university's severe finances amid the deepening recession, the officials said, citing a reduction of about ¥1 billion in annual state subsidies to the school.
The decision has angered the staff, who say part-timers play an important role in enhancing the academic and educational standards of the top-flight university.
Other state-run universities have also trimmed operational costs by terminating part-time contracts.
The subsidy cuts at Kyoto University have forced it to reduce personnel expenses and hence full-time staff. As a result, research initially assigned to full-time staff is being shouldered by part-timers.
As of December, about 2,600 people worked part time at Kyoto University. After contracts were capped at five years in March 2005, about 1,300 decided to remain with the school.
The 100 part-timers are the first whose contracts will expire under the five-year rule. According to a survey conducted by the university's labor union, at least 90 of the 100 want to renew the contracts.
An official with Kyoto University's personnel planning division indicated that terminating the contracts won't cause legal problems and said any people hired from April 2005 on were fully informed their jobs would be temporary and auxiliary and that their contracts would end in five years.
Yoshinori Kishimoto, who heads the university's general affairs division, said the university has no plans to change the five-year limit.
"Fewer than one out of five part-time employees work for three years or more," he said.