COVID-19 Pandemic Forces Rangers to Resort to Furloughs of Full-Time Employees
Texas Rangers ownership made the difficult decision on Tuesday to furlough roughly 12 percent of their full-time employees due to financial losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Rangers have around 500 full-time employees.
According to multiple reports, furloughed employees will receive two more weeks of pay and keep their benefits through October.
Co-owner and co-chairman Ray Davis issued a public statement on Tuesday afternoon:
"In March, as we were confronted with the coronavirus pandemic, my goal was to avoid furloughs. Unfortunately, after four months of cost saving measures, budget cuts and salary decreases, the severe financial consequences of the shutdown and lingering uncertainty about when we will play in front of fans, have left us out of options.
"Effective today, we instituted furloughs across our organization. The furloughs, which touch a number of baseball and business departments, reflect the realities of playing in an empty Globe Life Field, the shutdown of minor league baseball and other considerations related to the business challenges we face.
"I understand this causes significant hardship for some of our employees and their families. We have spent a great deal of time trying to find another course that would be less painful. I wish there was another way, but this decision is necessary for us to endure this crisis and emerge as strong as possible on the other side.
"I remain optimistic that we will be able to welcome our furloughed employees back to work in the future."
From the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the Rangers viewed layoffs or furloughs of their full-time employees as a last resort. From the top, Rangers executives took 20 percent pay cuts from the outset of the baseball shutdown. At the beginning of May, sliding pay cuts to full-time employees were instituted as well.
Even though the baseball season is set to get underway in 10 days, the absence of fans at games still heavily impacts revenue streams for Major League Baseball and its clubs. While the state of Texas still allows stadiums to be filled to 50 percent capacity, MLB decided the Rangers and Houston Astros should hold off on allowing fans to attend games. Any notion of fans attending games in August or September is still being evaluated.
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