Where Are We Cutting Back?

As budgets get tighter, where are we cutting back?

Hearing previous bloggers expand upon the lack of jobs and salary increases; I'm interested in where else you're feeling the pinch?

Is it in your benefits, such as the loss of retirement matching, or the increase of health care coverage for a decrease in benefits?

Do you think museums are cutting back on programming? If so, how and where?

Are we seeing a decrease in visitorship? Or an increase if you're at an admission free museum?

Please share your thoughts.

Surviving, Adapting, and Making Do

While I have heard that things are starting to turn around for our economy, it's a sad state of affairs when the"good news" is that jobs are being lost at just a slightly slower pace than they were over the past few months. While it appears that there are some job statistics on the for-profit sector, there seems to be a dearth of information about the non-profit sector--specifically museums. I have heard from numerous colleagues about massive lay-offs, hiring freezes, and ridiculously large pools of applicants for the handful of jobs that pop up. But, I dont really seen any hard and fast data about how museum employees have been affected.

Has your museum laid off workers? If so, how many? What department were they in? Have you recently lost your job? Have you found other work? How is the search going?

Any advice for job seekers out there? How are you coping in this economy? Have financial issues forced you to change or adapt your career path?

Is anyone out there?

We haven't posted on this blog in forever! For a lot of us out in museum-land our jobs have changed and our museums have changed significantly as a result of the economic downturn. Jobs have been cut, department budgets slashed, raises reduced or eliminated and in some extreme cases museums have closed.

Have you fallen victim to any of these? How are you coping? What have you changed about your career or how you do your job?

My brother asked me last week if I was pigeon-holed in my career and if I had options for careers outside of the museum? I've been thinking a great deal about that and it's hard for me to imagine myself in a non-museum setting. Has anyone transistioned to another field and found happiness or fulfillment?

Would love to hear from anyone out there and get this blog back on track. When times are tough like these we need to network and learn from each other now more than ever!