New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has laid off 79 employees and furloughed 181 workers, with 93 staff members taking early retirement, citing a $150 million deficit exacerbated by the pandemic. The museum's director Max Hollein and CEO Daniel H. Weiss announced the cuts in an email, noting that salaries comprise 65% of the annual budget. This is the second round of layoffs since April, when 81 employees lost their jobs, and the museum has also implemented pay reductions for top executives and frozen hiring. The workforce has shrunk by about 20%, from 2,000 to 1,600 staff, with 48% of those laid off being people of color. The Met aims to reopen on August 29 with reduced hours, pending government approval.
This matters because the Met is one of the world's largest and most prestigious art museums, and its severe financial strain reflects the broader crisis facing cultural institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The layoffs and furloughs highlight the unsustainable reliance on earned revenue from admissions, retail, and restaurants, and the challenges of maintaining a large workforce with a relatively small endowment draw. The disproportionate impact on staff of color also raises equity concerns within the museum sector. The Met's struggles may foreshadow similar actions at other major museums, reshaping the institutional landscape of the art world.