Tasmania's public sector job cuts target scientific roles, including Herbarium director

Scientific roles are among those that have been hit by Tasmania's public sector job losses, prompting warnings that the cuts are not strategic.

The ABC understands around half of the team at the Tasmanian Herbarium have been told they will lose their jobs, including the director, internationally acclaimed lichen researcher Dr Gintaras Kantvilas.

Dr Kantvilas won the Premier's STEM Researcher of the Year Award last year.

He has named more than 400 species of lichen in his career, and had several more named in his honour.

The Tasmanian Herbarium holds more than 312,000 preserved plant specimens and is responsible for developing, maintaining and managing Tasmania's official botanical collections.

A total of 150 jobs are being axed as part of the state government's Building Tasmania (formerly Department of State Growth) restructure. Already identified are 111 voluntary redundancies.

Independent MP Meg Webb said the targeting of areas such as the Herbarium for job cuts was indefensible.

"This looks like making a nonsense of the idea of right-sizing our public service," she said.

"What is 'right-sizing' about? Completely gutting a nationally significant herbarium that sits as a crucial facility in our state when it comes to research and when it comes to managing our environment?"

She said she was concerned about the way the government was going about the job cuts.

"We're going to see great people leaving and important roles no longer being fulfilled. There's nothing strategic about that."

Cuts still not clearly communicated, union says

The ABC understands a range of services have been affected by cuts, including public transport compliance and librarians at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) and the Geosciences Library.

The Community and Public Sector Union said it understood Active Tasmania, as well as Antarctic science and tech divisions, had been devastated.

The union called on the government to be clearer about which jobs were going.

"We see in the agency … an approach that is hiding what they're doing from both its own workforce and the community," union state secretary Thirza White said.

Staff affected by the restructure have been informed in face-to-face meetings this week; however, some were told only that their team was being reduced in size.

On Wednesday, proposed new organisational structures were released to staff for a two-week consultation.

Ms White said the union and workers needed to track down previous charts to piece together which roles were going.

In a statement yesterday, Building Tasmania acting secretary Shane Gregory said the process had been "highly complex".

"We expect a lot of feedback, and we are committed to carefully considering it all, before making any decisions on final structures," he said.

A need to take care of taxpayer dollar, government says

Asked if the government was concerned it would lose good people through the restructure process, Minister Nick Duigan said there would be opportunities for staff to move into other roles.

"We understand this is difficult. It has an impact on individuals. It has an impact on their families, all of those things," he said.

"What we don't want to see is a dropping off in our service delivery, that's important to us as government.

"But we have a responsibility to deliver our public service and take care of the taxpayers' dollar very carefully."

He said it was the job of department secretaries to handle the restructure.

Labor's workplace relations spokesperson, Ella Haddad, said workers had been left in limbo.

"The very least workers deserve in this difficult time is certainty, but the process [Treasurer] Eric Abetz has set in motion doesn't even afford them that," she said.