DEAL
11:58 AM PDT 7/28/2020
by
Erik hayden
Until today, the Century City-based firm has been the only major talent agency to avoid pandemic-related staff cuts.
Since the closure of Hollywood movies and television in mid-March, the industry representation business has suffered a financial blow. On Tuesday, CAA became the last major agency to reveal plans for layoffs and licenses amid the new coronavirus pandemic.
“Starting this week, approximately 90 agents and department executives from across the agency will be leaving. In addition, we are suspending approximately 275 assistants and other staff. The company will continue to fully pay the health plan premiums for those who are suspended. ” The CAA spokesman said.
Among the agents and executives affected, employees in cross-division functions such as the finance and information technology departments were also affected. Affected CAA employees will be compensated and receive benefits until September 30.
The cuts are notable in that CAA, which has approximately 2,100 employees in total, had been the only major talent agency to avoid a significant round of layoffs amid the pandemic. In April, the agency said it would implement company-wide proportional pay cuts to avoid permits, with co-chairs Richard Lovett, Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane pledging to forgo wages for the rest of 2020.
On May 4, S&P Global lowered CAA’s credit rating from “B +” to “B”. While the financial services firm noted that CAA “will maintain sufficient liquidity to meet all of its debt obligations,” its forecast also noted that “the agency’s represented talent is being directly affected by these disruptions because they are not receiving compensation.”
Many Hollywood companies have implemented layoffs and pay cuts amid pandemic-era filming disruption, and major agencies were not immune. In May, WME said it would lay off and lay off 20 percent of its workforce, and its parent company, Endeavor, which has a workforce of 7,500 employees, would let 83 employees go alone at its Beverly Hills location.
After implementing salary cuts, UTA also began firing employees in May, and the agency temporarily laid off 171 employees in Beverly Hills, according to a statement from the California Department of Employment Development. “We hope that the salary reductions we take are sufficient, but at this point we must take this additional step,” wrote UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer in a May 4 memo.
Century City-based ICM Partners, which employs more than 500, said on June 26 that it would fire 40 support employees in a reorganization aimed at increasing attendees’ wages. And the talent agency APA, on June 30, said it was implementing an unspecified number of permits, as well as salary cuts to its workforce of 300.
Earlier in the pandemic in March, Paradigm announced that it was implementing wage cuts and leave for its more than 600 employees, and the agency later revealed to the State of California that it temporarily laid off 130 employees.
