State Of Employment Poll & Review July 27 – August 2

There’s no getting around the fact that week 16 was a rough week for stakeholder employment status. While per-service musicians continued to share the largest ratio of economic pain, administrators saw some steep shifts of those moving from under-employed to unemployed statuses.

Sobering Statistics

• For the first three weeks, approximately 70 percent of administrators indicated being paid their regular full or part time wage. That’s down to 18.6 percent.
• For the first seven weeks, the ratio of salaried musicians indicating they were not being paid but had health benefits was in the single digits. It’s now up to 53 percent.
• The smallest ratio of per-service musicians indicating not being paid for cancelled services was 17 percent. Over the last several weeks, that figure has averaged 46 percent.

Weekly Report

Responses from Administrators indicate one of the largest shifts in status since the inset of shutdowns. A full 42 percent of respondents indicated little to no prospects of returning to work. Of those, 15.3 percent have seen their positions eliminated while the other 27.1 percent have been laid off. Given that furloughs declined slightly to 11.9 percent, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn if some of those have converted to laid-off or terminated status. Only 18.6 percent indicated they were working or being paid at their regular full time or part time status. while 27.1 percent are working at reduced hours and pay and 42 percent indicated they have either been furloughed, laid-off, or seen their positions eliminated.

Salaried musicians maintained the most consistency among respondents. 53 percent indicated they are not drawing a salary but have health care benefits while the remaining 43 percent indicated being paid a reduced salary.

Per-service musicians continued to shoulder the largest ratio of economic paid with most  respondents indicating they are not being paid for any cancelled services or are only receiving reduced payments.

You can track the per week and cumulative totals along with all of the stakeholder charts at the Orchestra Stakeholder Employment Status During Coronavirus Shutdowns Google Sheet.

This Week’s Poll

• For staffers and managers, the questions are straightforward. Music directors (employee or independent contractor status) and staff conductor positions should respond as an administrator.
• For musicians, questions are specialized for 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.
• Each weekly poll will allow you to submit one reply. Having said that, it is important for each respondent to return the following week in order to confirm or update your status with a new reply. Doing so will provide an even clearer sense of how things change from week to week.

If you have not yet submitted a response this week, please take a moment to submit your status below. The more submissions we have, the better the data represents current conditions. To that end, we’ll be collecting results through Sunday for this week’s totals so if you have yet to submit a response, please take a moment to do so.

Likewise, submitting a response each week goes a long way toward tracking major changes in status. So, thank you in advance for taking part and encouraging your friends and colleagues to do the same.

This Survey has expired.