The Metropolitan Museum of Art continues to cut its workforce

The killing continues. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Wednesday announced to its employees further cuts in its workforce: 79 job cuts, 181 unpaid leave and 93 voluntary departures. By April, more than 80 employees of the museum, which has been closed since March 13, had been made redundant. After this second round of departures, the Met will have 1,600 employees against 2,000 before confinement, i.e. a 20% cut in its workforce.

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According to the New York Times , the museum is all the more determined to downsize as it fears that the number of visitors will be considerably lower when it reopens than before the pandemic. In 2018, the museum welcomed 20,000 people on average every day, being open every day. The Met should only welcome the public five days a week in the future. And the numbers of visits to the Louvre Museum in July are not there to reassure minds across the Atlantic: the French museum saw its attendance divided by four when it reopened.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art had previously announced that it would reopen on August 29, but the management team recognizes that this date is subject to change. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo took cultural players short by announcing that museums would not be allowed to reopen during phase 4 of deconfinement, which began on July 20.

We have to admit that the museum in which we will return to work will be very different from the one we left six months ago.

"We have to admit that the museum in which we will return to work will be very different from the one we left six months ago, " wrote Dan Weiss, chief executive of the Met in a statement.

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In a letter to employees, Dan Weiss and Max Hollein, the museum's director, write that the management team has been working to limit staff cuts - including through a hiring freeze and budget cuts for projects artistic. Dan Weiss and Max Hollein have also seen their wages drop by 20%.

Disrupted budget management

The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that it has also upset the budgetary management of its more than $ 3 billion in donations. Some $ 25 million usually spent on acquisitions of works are now allocated to operating expenses.

For five months, the earnings associated with ticketing, sales and events were nonexistent. Adding to that the inexorable drop in attendance, the Met expects to lose $ 150 million in revenue. While the cuts affect all of its activities, they particularly affect sales, visitor services and security. Under these circumstances, a very uncertain reopening is taking shape for the New York museum.