As the theme park capital of the world is closed for business Monday, at least some of SeaWorld’s part-time workers — the brunt of its workforce — won’t be getting paid while full-time employees will see their hours cut by 20%, according to company memos.
SeaWorld, an Orlando-based company that runs 12 theme parks across the country, hasn’t responded to questions about its employees’ pay during the unprecedented shutdown, but the Orlando Sentinel obtained company messages from the employee portal. SeaWorld did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the memos.
“Part-time ambassadors will not be scheduled or paid during this time unless communicated otherwise by your leadership,” the message to employees said.
At the end of 2019, there were nearly 11,000 part-time employees versus 4,300 full-time workers, according to a SEC filing last month. The company isn’t unionized like Disney World.
SeaWorld has about 6,000 employees locally, according to the Orlando Economic Partnership.
SeaWorld’s handling of the shutdown is different from Disney and Universal, which have said they plan to pay their “scheduled workers” through March regardless of whether they were part-time or full-time. SeaWorld is also overcoming years of financial instability and layoffs so it doesn’t have the same deep pockets as the Walt Disney Company or the Comcast-owned Universal parks although it still turned a $90 million profit last year on $1.4 billion in revenue.
A SeaWorld part-time worker who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution confirmed that he was approached at the park by his manager on Saturday who said part-timers would not be getting paid through the closure.
“In layman’s terms, the company can’t afford it,” the worker said.
Now, he is looking to pick up other jobs where he can and considering applying for unemployment and food stamps.
The employee, who lives with three other workers also employed at Orlando theme parks, said paying rent is the biggest concern for hospitality workers who live paycheck to paycheck.
“What I’m most worried about is becoming homeless,” he said.
Meanwhile, SeaWorld full-time employees will get paid 32 hours a week instead of the normal 40 hours while the parks are closed for March.
Both full-time and part-time employees are allowed to use their accrued paid time off to make up for their lost income, although the company said full-timers are not allowed to “gift” their PTO to part-timers.
Full-time employees will continue to receive their employee benefits, like health insurance.
Employees were told not to post about their personal situations on social media beyond what’s already publicly known, the company also said.
To help some workers, the SeaWorld part-time employee said the company gave away non-frozen food it had in its kitchens to employees affected by the closing of the park. The rest of the food was then donated to area food banks.