The ongoing coronavirus crisis has affected many different facets of society. Amidst growing concerns over this pandemic, AMC Theatres revealed on March 16 that they were closing down their 630 United States chain locations for six to twelve weeks. The chain could reopen their locations on June 6 at the very latest. Although, this all depends on whether or not the country can get a handle on this pandemic. Following that news, Deadline has reported that AMC Theatres has furloughed 600 employees in their Leawood, Kansas, home office.
According to the publication, health insurance will remain intact for those furloughed employees, but they will have to figure out how to pay for those policies during this period of time. Deadline also reported that AMC Theatres employees will be compensated in respect to how many days per week they worked. Employees who worked 4 days per week will receive 80 percent of their salary while those who worked 2 days per week will receive 40 percent of their salary. As previously mentioned, this news comes a couple of weeks after AMC Theatres announced that they would be closing down their United States locations because of ongoing concerns surrounding the coronavirus. At the time, AMC boss Adam Aron released a statement about the news in which he noted that this decision was made with the CDC’s guidelines for social distancing in mind.
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“We are ever so disappointed for our moviegoing guests and for our employee teams that the new CDC guidelines that Americans should not gather in groups larger than 10 people make it impossible to open our theatres,” Aron’s statement read. “Still, the health and wellbeing of AMC guests and employees, and of all Americans, takes precedence above all else. We will continue to monitor this situation very closely and look forward to the day we can again delight moviegoers nationwide by reopening AMC movie theatres in accordance with guidance from the CDC and local health authorities.”
Deadline went on to report that his news comes after AMC Entertainment furloughed 26,000 of its 27,000 employees, which largely included cinema staffs across the country. In response to the news, Aron appeared on CNBC to address these changes within the company.
“We’re paying them as much as we can possibly afford to pay them,” he said. “For those in the health plan, we’re keeping them in the health plan with their benefits active for the full time that we’re shut. But my focus is as much making sure there’s a company for them to come back to…I’d like to make sure that this company, which has been strong for 100 years, stays strong.”
