MET Lays Off Staff

The NY Times is reporting the Met has laid off 34 employees as they strive to reduce its deficit by $30 million. The number is fewer than expected and does not include anyone from the curatorial or conservation staff. Further cost cutting is to include reducing the number of exhibitions per year.

The NY Times reports

As part of an effort to cut its deficit by $30 million, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has laid off 34 employees, the museum announced on Wednesday. The number is fewer than the Met originally anticipated, and makes up 1.5 percent of its more than 2,200-member work force.

The Met said that the layoffs do not include any curators or conservators and bring to a close the current phase of its financial restructuring process.

“These are difficult decisions — we’re disappointed to be losing good colleagues — but we’re making very good progress on the process we put in motion,” Daniel H. Weiss, the Met’s president and chief operating officer, said in a telephone interview. “Our goal was to meet the budget objectives that we have without in any way diminishing the core mission of the museum.”

The Met has already had some success at increasing revenue from retail operations, Mr. Weiss said, which declined by $3 million to $4 million over the last year.

The Met has been contending with a ballooning deficit even as it aims to raise money for a $600 million new wing dedicated to Modern and contemporary art and to sustain its eight-year lease at the Met Breuer at a cost of $17 million a year.

After completing the schematic design phase of the building project this fall, “we’ll be turning more actively to fund-raising,” Mr. Weiss said, adding that the museum was “in discussions with various donors.”

The Met had prepared to cut curatorial and conservation jobs by 5 percent (which would have amounted to more than 100 employees), and administrative staff — including marketing, human resources and digital personnel — by 15 to 20 percent.

In July, the Met announced that more than 50 staff members had taken buyouts. The museum also expects to reduce the number of annual exhibitions over the next few years, perhaps to 40 from 55.

Source: The NY Times