wrestling / News

Update On Furloughed WWE Employees Not Being Brought Back This Month

August 7, 2020 | Posted by Joseph Lee
WWE Logo, WWE Night, Sam Alvey, WWE Campus Rush Recruitment Tour, Gorilla Monsoon, Espy Awards, Hulu, Rob Fee Image Credit: WWE

As we previously reported, the WWE employees that were furloughed back in April will remain that way until August 28, which means they won’t actually be back until September. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that when the furloughed employees were told they wouldn’t be brought back this month, it led to ‘significant unhappiness’.

Around 240 full-time employees (who aren’t wrestlers) were furloughed. The wrestlers were not figured in the Q2 profits because they were still being paid through mid-July. However, the other employee cuts saved the company $51.6 million. The producers and those who worked with live events knew that they wouldn’t be back until those shows came back. The other staff, however, expected to be back at the beginning of last month. A few were brought back, but it was a small number.

The idea is that while the furloughs made sense in April, because at the time they didn’t know if they would be able to tape new TV. However wrestling was declared an ‘essential business’ so they were allowed to keep taping. The fear that WWE would lose TV deals without live programming went away, because neither FOX nor NBC Universal are planning to back out of the deals and aren’t demanding live programming.

By July, WWE was setting profit records and so the employees are upset that WWE went on to extend the furloughs twice. They are also unhappy that management knew the Q2 numbers and seven days before the investment call the furlough was extended. It’s also unknown how many will be brought back and if the furlough will get extended another month.

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WWE, Joseph Lee