Government funding cuts and rising costs have forced the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic to shed eight full-time jobs which is the equivalent of a 2 per cent cut in staff.
Polytechnic chief executive Alan Hampton said funding cuts and cost increases had increased the pressure on the organisation to find efficiencies so it remained financially strong.
The savings had been achieved by not filling some staff vacancies and voluntary redundancies. It was a mixture of full-time and part-time jobs.
"We regret the loss of positions and the personal impact on those staff, particularly at this time of the year," Dr Hampton said.
He was optimistic that the efficiencies would not affect the quality of the services offered by the polytechnic. It has 381 full-time-equivalent staff positions.