Hundreds of Reno teaching jobs will soon be lost as a major higher educational institution sheds positions.

The University of Nevada, Reno recently announced that it will cut 279 jobs. No filled tenure or tenure-track positions will be eliminated. Several full-time faculty members will teach bigger classes in order to replace the loss of several part-time faculty members.

Officials said the cuts are necessary because of a 15 percent budget cut that decreased the university’s state funding by $33 million during the next two fiscal years, according to an article by Mercury News.

State appropriations were cut by 33 percent, impacting programs like Oral History, the Center for Ethics and Health Policy, the Small Business Development Center and the Nevada Bureau of Mines. The Equine Center; Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Peace Studies; writing and math tutoring centers; and the Career Development Department will all be closed.

Although the education industry is often said to be recession-proof, many cities and states are now losing workers, including Reno and Nevada. The Reno-Sparks area hasn’t managed to add any new workers to this industry and has seen a decrease in workers from last year.

The area’s education and health services industry employed 21,000 workers during May, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. While this is the same number of workers employed by that industry during April, it is a 1.4 percent decrease from last year.

Throughout the State of Nevada as a whole, the education and health services industry employed 96,800 workers during May, down from 97,300 workers during April, but a 1.4 percent increase from last year.