At the of COVID Week 4, the total combined #museum furloughs/layoffs tracked on this sheet stands at 8485, or nearly 5% of the total people employeed in this profession according to BLS stats from Feb 2020. I'm adding a few additional notes to this thread. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
First, we know this is a significant undercount. The sheet only shows data someone has entered. Sometimes data comes from announcements by museums themselves, sometimes by employees (both affected and remaining), and sometimes because it's been reported in the local press.
Second, in some cases we know there have been layoffs or furloughs, but not how many or who has been impacted. So the sheet in some cases indicates that there's been impact, but we don't have the numbers. So the actual number is probably quite a bit higher than 8485/5%.
121 museums are listed on the sheet. There are probably many more that have furloughed or laid off staff, since the vast majority of US museums have closed.
In the second tab, we've aggregated 50 news stories covering the impact to museums. Honestly, that's not many, considering the number of museums experiencing impact to staff. This says a lot about the state of local journalism as well as about museums.
One observation: when trying to parse public museum statements, there's often not a clear difference between "layoffs" and "furloughs." The key to furlough is that it's temporary. (FLSA Q&A about furloughs here). dol.gov/agencies/whd/f…
But many museums doing furloughs are also hedging their bets about whether those jobs will come back. Some have set a future date for re-evauating within the budget calendar. Some are leaving the question open.
What seems very, very clear is that our field will be shrinking. The staff functions we're going to need while in COVID limbo are different from those we needed before and will be different from those to come after.
And "after" may be a long time getting here, as we'll be operating in some form of modified capacity - even if we reopen soon, it means limited admission, reduced program offer, more online - for probably more than a year.
I want to recognize that museum leaders are in a very tough position. Sure, there are the people who are being called out for their excessively generous salaries and lack of sensitivity to staff. They are out there and they are seen.
But there are also a lot of wonderful directors, department leaders and board members working extremely hard, and creatively, to try to preserve as much human capacity as possible, and reduce the impact on people's lives and museum services. And they are seen too.
One thing that's going to provide us some serious food for thought over the next few months is the discussion about what a contemporary museum *is.* Charters require museums to perpetuate themselves as institutions.
Does preserving a museum for the future, according to its charter, really just mean preserving the buildings and collections? What role do museum humans play? Is human capacity as core an asset as collection or site?
And we will be thinking about museum hierarchies and functions. Where does institutional knowledge live? What skills are harder to replace or pick back up when things reopen? Which are easier to train up for?
And what's the job mix we'll need to be the most nimble and creative and responsive in an environment that's going to remain extremely unpredictable for say, 18 months?
Some things to keep track of as this conversation unfolds: @AMTransparency is logging layoffs and offering analysis as well as organizing. Museum leaders, it's essential to track this conversation - things workers are bringing up are going to matter a lot in the ramp back up.
#Libraries are tracking layoffs here: docs.google.com/document/d/1AN…
And #archives staff are doing the same here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
One last note, we need to note that the impact in the aggregate disproportionately affects people who work part-time. The ratio of FTers to PTers affected by layoffs or furloughs appears to be something between 1:3 and 1:5. How will we think about the PT/FT ratio in future?
Over the next couple weeks I'll be working with others on a way to bring this discussion more widely to the history museum community, and look forward to talking more about this with you all. In the meantime, take a break this weekend, and rest well.
