State Of Employment Poll April 6 – 12

While it’s a sensitive topic, we all know performing arts orgs have been laying off and reducing hours for arts admins and musicians. What I’m not seeing is very much data about where things are from week to week and while I’m not able to set up a scientific poll right now, that doesn’t mean we can’t get a sense of where things are.

To that end, I put together a straightforward poll asking arts admins and musicians to indicate their current employment status.

For musicians, the questions and responses are broken into salary and per-service level musicians. While there are certainly musicians that fall between those groups, I’m asking that you use your best judgement to select answers that best represent your current work status.

If we get enough results, I plan on updating these figures each week over April and possibly May. Consequently, thank you in advance for sharing this with your colleagues.

This Survey has expired. You can view the results at the State Of Employment Series Archive: https://adaptistration.com/series/covid-19-state-of-employment-poll/

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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