Auckland University of Technology has decided to cut 170 full-time academic positions – more than it had earlier flagged – leaving the union fighting the restructure "disgusted and horrified".

Blaming a large drop in international students, and growing inflationary and economic pressures, AUT last month announced a major restructure with proposals to cut up to 230 jobs.

Most of those cuts were among staff in specific academic areas categorised in a group, in which 150 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions were proposed to go.

But today, staff learned in an emailed message from vice-chancellor Damon Salesa that staffing levels in that group would instead be cut by 170 FTE positions.

Acknowledging this was more than the figure earlier put to staff, Salesa put the decision down to new financial forecasts, ongoing high inflation and potential impacts of salary increases next year.

"This decision has been made to position the university to be able to operate sustainably and deliver on the vision from 2023."

Student numbers had continued to fall, government funding and fees increases weren't keeping pace with inflation, and salary costs had continued to increase, he said.

Updated forecasting suggested AUT would have 250 fewer equivalent full-time students than the number projected when the cuts were first proposed, representing a further hit to student revenue for 2023 of about $2.5 million.

"This is an experience shared across the sector, as most universities face a decline in student demand, and our capable staff are doing as much as we can to attract new students," Salesa said.

"The current economy, extraordinary and ongoing inflationary pressure, the consequences of the pandemic, and the challenges in attracting international students back to New Zealand are all headwinds we must face."

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The email laid out a month-long timetable in which voluntary severance among affected staff could be dealt with, before the changes came into effect on December 1.

As part of its initially-proposed cuts, AUT had tasked four major groups of faculties with reducing the numbers of staff in each sector by varying amounts.

The Design and Creative Technologies department had been tasked to reduce its staff by 50, and the Culture and Society and Te Ara Poutama department by 40.

The Business, Economics and Law department and the Health & Environmental Sciences department had been tasked to reduce by 30 each.

Other programmes in this targeted group were considered to be "no longer strategically aligned with the future direction" of AUT.

Those include a BA major in Social Sciences, BA major in Conflict Resolution, BA major in English and New Media, BA major in Japanese Studies, BA major in Chinese Studies including a minor in Asian Studies and a BA minor in Language Teaching.

Salesa said today that two programmes earlier ear-marked for closure – the BA major in Social Sciences, and Certificate in Science and Technology – would now be retained.

In response to a Herald question, AUT also confirmed that the cuts wouldn't affect Māori and Pasifika academic staff members.

"Throughout the considerations and proposed changes, AUT's strengthened focus on advancing our Te Tiriti commitments and to reflecting the communities we serve will be sustained," a spokesperson said.

"These commitments will be embodied in a principle that the proposed changes will not have negative impacts on the proportion of AUT academic staff who are Māori and/or Pacific."

Meanwhile, AUT had been separately dealing with three other main groups targeted in the restructure, where a further 80 redundancies were proposed.

Cuts among one of those groups, involving administration and support staff, were likely to come next year.

Another group – focused on what AUT described as "non-core activities" - included the university's Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory, now to close on December 16, with the loss of three permanent and one hourly paid positions.

"While necessary, it is not easy to confirm we cannot take all our staff with us into the future," Salesa told staff in the email.

"I know our people work every day to support the academic endeavour and our students and I wish we did not have to do this."

The Tertiary Education Union (TEU), which has organised a rally at the corner of Symonds and St Paul Sts later this afternoon, is outraged at the decision.

"We're disgusted and horrified," organiser Jill Jones told the Herald, saying AUT had changed what it originally floated.

"We're saying that's not what they originally consulted on," she said.

"It's a changing of the goalposts and we're already taking them to the Employment Relations Authority."

The union has challenged the business case for the restructure, which Jones said AUT hadn't provided enough information to support.

Earlier today, the union's branch president at AUT David Sinfield said he was particularly frustrated at Salesa's refusal to directly answer questions about the restructuring.

"We wrote to Professor Salesa over a month ago to ask him to front up in person and tell our members to our faces why he wants to axe so many of their jobs," he said.

"It took him over a month to reply, and he still has not met with us."

Sinfield said the union's members were "extremely upset" and deserved better, noting how Salesa recently acknowledged "the huge amount of hard work put in by our staff" in AUT's high Times Higher Education ranking.

"Making 230 of them redundant and offering effective pay cuts to the rest not only makes a mockery of his stated gratitude but it puts the future of our university at risk," he said.

The AUT Council "must intervene", he said.