Guggenheim Museum Lays Off 20 Workers
It's the third round of staff cuts at the museum in five years.
The Guggenheim Museum in New York is laying off 20 employees, around 7% of its staff, the institution announced today, February 28, citing post-pandemic financial constraints.
“The extended post-pandemic period has presented a number of challenges felt across our field, in the United States and abroad, including rising costs, variable attendance levels, and changes in international tourism,” a spokesperson for the Guggenheim told Hyperallergic in a statement.
In recent years, the Guggenheim Museum has raised ticket prices, reduced operating expenses, and implemented hiring freezes. However, the institution's spokesperson said, “our current financial picture requires us to make the difficult decision to reduce staffing and reorganize some teams to position the museum well for the future."
The layoffs affected 14 union workers in Local 2110 United Auto Workers, the chapter’s president Olga Brudastova told Hyperallergic. She added that they were terminated from their positions “without notice” and “denied any union representation” at the meetings regarding the layoffs.
“The Union has already filed a grievance over this and has demanded information and bargaining with the Museum over the layoffs," Brudastova said.
The possibility of impending staff cuts at the Guggenheim was briefly mentioned earlier this morning during a City Council oversight hearing to discuss the recent layoffs at the Brooklyn Museum, which impacted 47 full- and part-time employees. At the hearing, the director of District Council 37, New York City's largest union, called on institutions to exhaust all options before laying off workers.
"They can't get away with saying, 'Well, expenses are going up,' because that's going to happen in other museums — we're hearing the Guggenheim may face this, and we went through this with the Brooklyn Academy of Music," DC 37 Executive Director Henry A. Garrido testified at today's hearing, prior to a New York Times report confirming the layoffs.
The staff cuts at the Guggenheim, which represent the third round of layoffs at the museum in five years, are set to go into effect immediately and will impact six departments, including Advancement, Education, Global Communications, legal, operations, and archives.
The museum's director Mariët Westermann told staff in a memo that the layoffs would not affect senior leadership and curators, the Times reported.
Two previous rounds of layoffs at the Guggenheim in the last five years affected more than two dozen workers, including two deputy directors. Amid the reductions, the museum's previous director Richard Armstrong, who stepped down from the role in 2023, took home total compensation packages that reached over $1 million, according to the museum's tax filings.
A Guggenheim spokesperson said that the layoffs did not impact workers in the museum's other bargaining unit, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 30.
Editor's note 3/5/25 12:45pm EST: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the staff cuts affected all departments except for senior leadership and curators. The cuts affected six departments. The story has been corrected.
