[Goose]

Ditto. My team at PwC was 90 total, 40 staff employees, 50 contractors. When times whent bad, we got rid of all the contractors. When times got worse, we cut 20% of the employees...but not until every single contractor was gone.

One big difference is that at Stanford, "times" generally don't go bad. The University isn't tied directly into the short-term economy. When the return on the endowment goes down (due to a general economic downturn) they don't shed staff, because their staff is not coupled to "profitability" or even "productivity". While a position on the Stanford staff isn't "tenured", it is close. Their are some positions that are tied to grants, and these positions are at risk if grant money dries up. Those are really the only "layoffs" that happen, and Stanford does a pretty good job of shuffling people around to avoid those.

Stanford did a substantial number of layoffs in the 2008-2009 financial crisis.  Although smoothed, the payout from the endowment decreased and loans were incurred to meet short-term cash requirements while illiquid investments were underwater.

Thus my comment about "generally". It took an epic meltdown to produce those layoffs. Even then, the 500 or so layoffs was a relative drop in the bucket compared to other institutions. I can't find the head count in 2008, but the 500 layoffs would be about 3% of the current staff. So maybe 6% back then? Nothing compared to what lots of industry was doing.

[Goose]

Ditto. My team at PwC was 90 total, 40 staff employees, 50 contractors. When times whent bad, we got rid of all the contractors. When times got worse, we cut 20% of the employees...but not until every single contractor was gone.

One big difference is that at Stanford, "times" generally don't go bad. The University isn't tied directly into the short-term economy. When the return on the endowment goes down (due to a general economic downturn) they don't shed staff, because their staff is not coupled to "profitability" or even "productivity". While a position on the Stanford staff isn't "tenured", it is close. Their are some positions that are tied to grants, and these positions are at risk if grant money dries up. Those are really the only "layoffs" that happen, and Stanford does a pretty good job of shuffling people around to avoid those.

Stanford did a substantial number of layoffs in the 2008-2009 financial crisis.  Although smoothed, the payout from the endowment decreased and loans were incurred to meet short-term cash requirements while illiquid investments were underwater.

Thus my comment about "generally". It took an epic meltdown to produce those layoffs. Even then, the 500 or so layoffs was a relative drop in the bucket compared to other institutions. I can't find the head count in 2008, but the 500 layoffs would be about 3% of the current staff. So maybe 6% back then? Nothing compared to what lots of industry was doing.