Business Environment Assignment: Job Losses In Australian Educational Sector
Question
Task:
Context of business environment assignment:
Businesses in the modern marketplace cannot afford to ignore the macro environment in which they operate. To navigate this vast and ever-changing landscape, businesses must keep a keen eye on external macro factors which influence it. The media summary analyses report is an effort to identify some of these macro environmental factors that impact on the external context of the commercial landscape while developing an awareness of potential risk and propose solutions to the risks they pose.
Objectives:
- To more broadly understand the macro environmental factors with real world examples which influence businesses;
- Assess and address the challenges and risks which businesses face due to external macro factors;
- Identify and present appropriate business strategies to offset these risks.
Task Instructions:
With reference to the list of following sources (below), find an article which relates to the political, legal/ regulatory and economic environments. Your article should illustrate the key concepts and practices which have been discussed in the course. The article must relate to a company which is still in operation. The relevant articles must be published within the last 3 months from the deadline stated in the assessment brief.
Choose an article from the following sources:
The Australian Financial Review; The Sydney Morning Herald; The Australian;
ABC News 24 TV;
SkyNews Business News; The Economist; Bloomberg;
BBC News;
Financial Times;
The Guardian;
The Wall Street Journal; Harvard Business Review
Answer
Executive Summary
The report by (Karp, 2020) published in The Guardian taken herein business environment assignment shows the extent of job loss that the educational sector is supposed to face summing up to a number of 21,000. It is due to the declining number of foreign enrolment in the Australian universities which constitute about 50% of the total worth of the sector. The global pandemic had led to lower number of enrolment in such institutions and to save the day, the government declared a package of $18 billion. But owing to the current scenario, it would be better for the universities to be self-sufficient by offering online short-term courses for the people to utilise their spare time by pursuing their incomplete education rather than on social media.
Introduction
The report by (Karp, 2020) published in The Guardian taken herein business environment assignment shows the extent of job loss that the educational sector is supposed to face summing up to a number of 21,000. It is due to the declining number of foreign enrolment in the Australian universities which constitute about 50% of the total worth of the sector. The global pandemic had led to lower number of enrolment in such institutions and to save the day, the government declared a package of $18 billion. But owing to the current scenario, it would be better for the universities to be self-sufficient by offering online short-term courses for the people to utilise their spare time by pursuing their incomplete education rather than on social media.
Discussion:
Problem statement –
The global pandemic of COVID-19 or coronavirus is affecting the normal course of life and is extended deep into the Australian society, businesses and education(Koonin, 2020). The impact of coronavirus could be understood by the fact that the university authorities across the country warned the Federal Government that in the upcoming 6 months, the sector would have to axe 21,000 jobs. This is due to the rapid decline in the number of international students, the education sector being the 3rd largest export. The Australian education department announced a relief package of $18 billion for drop in the domestic enrolment to save the day.
The education minister, Dan Tehan further announced a regulatory fee relief of worth $100 million to the tertiary education sector inclusive of private vocation training and educational facilities(Karp, 2020). But the Universities across the country state that such amount would not be helpful to prevent the massive job losses in the country. On the wake of coronavirus threat, the individual universities are already on the spree to reduce its expenditures by deferring its expansion plans, striving for lower operation costs and cutting down wages of the staff. In a nutshell, the higher educational institutions in Australia are in life-support and in need of government assistance badly.
Macro-environmental impact –
The outbreak of coronavirus had an adverse impact on the political, social, economic and regulatory implications of Australia. The phenomenon could be well understood by the impact that the educational sector in the country has been facing and effort of the government to revive the scenario. The political reaction could be understood by the government initiative to guarantee a relief package of $18 billion in case the enrolment process in the universities goes down(Karp, 2020). So there has been a proper shake-up for the political authorities as the domestic educational sector is a revenue generation means for the country.
The economic implication seems to be the most important as the poor performance of the educational sector owing to the outbreak of COVID-19 is supposed to axe massive number of employment in the sector numbering to 21,000. This is due to the falling revenue of the educational institutions as for an instance, the University of Sydney is expecting a financial loss of $470 million due to the outbreak of the pandemic(Boot, et al., 2020). The university authorities estimate that the current financial loss would be around $3 billion to $4.6 billion and that too having the support of commonwealth grant scheme and HELP funding or else the figures would be much higher. So to survive the scenario, doing away with the number of staff or cutting down their wages seems to be sustainable(Spencer & Slee, 2020). The government has also facilitated the waiver of regulation fee amounting to $100 million for the universities to carry on with its business without any such job loss.
Business strategies –
The plight of the educational sector is a universal concern and need to find out a proper resolution to it which could be addressed by running a SWOT analysis on the educational sector in Australia.
The strength of the educational sector lies in its reputation to deliver high quality of education and the education sector in Australia is a worth of $23 billion(Davies, 2020). It is the 3rd largest export segment in Australia with participation of prestigious institutes like University of Wollongong, Victoria University, University of Sydney and Australian National University among others.
The weakness lies in the fact that the sector is very much dependent on the foreign students as out of the forecasted revenue of worth $2.8 billion, an estimated $1.2 billion was supposed to come from the foreign students, especially China.
Despite such adverse scenario, the universities could come up with alternative measures like introduction of vocational or online short-term courses(Boot, et al., 2020). Owing to the lockdown scenario across the country, many people have spare time and the time could be utilised to learn new things or pursue a crash course. It would be an opportunity for the institutes to encase the spare time of the people rather spending time and energy on social media.
But threat to pursue such strategy lies in the factthattheglobal pandemic would be followed by a plausible recession and many people would be devoid of their livelihood. On such a scenario, pursuing education would not be a good idea for the targeted population.
Conclusion:
The report concludes the fact that the newspaper article published in The Guardian pointed out to a horrifying state of the current educational scenario in Australia with a potential job loss numbering to 21,000. The government seems to offer a relief package to the educational sector but that seems to be inadequate. But the scenario could be well utilised by the educational institutions by offering vocational and online short-term courses as the people had spare time to deliver for pursuing their incomplete education.It would be an opportunity by the universities to be self-sufficient owing to their wide reputation and in this way they could sustain the blow of coronavirus.
References
Boot, A., Carletti, E., Haselmann, R., Kotz, H., Krahnen, J., Pelizzon, L., . . . Subrahmanyam, M. (2020). The coronavirus and financial stability. SAFE Policy Letter, 78(1), 50-62.
Davies, A. (2020, April 14). 'A downward spiral': coronavirus spins Australian universities into economic crisis. Business environment assignment Retrieved from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/14/a-downward-spiral-coronavirus-spins-australian-universities-into-economic-crisis
Karp, P. (2020, April 12). Australian universities warn Covid-19 relief package not enough to stop 21,000 job losses. Retrieved from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/12/australian-universities-warn-covid-19-relief-package-not-enough-to-stop-21000-jobs-losses
Koonin, L. (2020). Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak: Now is the time to refresh pandemic plans. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 13(4), 1-15.
Spencer, Y., & Slee, C. (2020). Coronavirus: Universities collude with race politics. Green Left Weekly, 1253(3), 6.
