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The Met lays off 34 employees in attempt to correct budget deficit

The Met has announced that it is making a round of involuntary layoffs, totaling 34 employees, as part of a financial reform plan that will attempt to bring the troubled museum into good standing by 2018, Jennifer Smith of the Wall Street Journal reports. While the Met has laid off 1.5% of its workforce–not including another 57 employees who took voluntary buyouts earlier this year–no curators or senior personnel were laid off, only administrative workers. Read Smith in partial below, in full via Wall Street Journal.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is laying off 34 employees, or about 1.5% of its workforce, museum officials said Wednesday.

The cuts are part of a broader financial overhaul announced earlier this year to address widening deficits at the Met, one of the largest and wealthiest museums in the U.S.

Several executives stepped down in June. The next month 57 employees took buyouts offered through a voluntary retirement program. The museum has also instituted a hiring freeze.

The goal is to balance the Met’s budget by the end of fiscal 2018, said the museum’s president, Daniel Weiss. The museum is also setting aside resources to pay off a $250 million bond series sold in 2015 to fund various infrastructure improvements.

*Image of the Met via NY Post