As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact employment across the globe,????????? ???????? ???????? Netflix is doing its part to support thousands of entertainment workers now out of a job.
On Friday, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos announced the streaming company would establish a $100 million relief fund to ease "hardship in the creative community." The initiative aims to assist not only laid-off Netflix employees, but crew and cast members across the industry — including those who are paid hourly wages and hired on a project-to-project basis.
"Most of the fund will go towards support for the hardest hit workers on our own productions around the world," Sarandos said in a company blog post. "We’re in the process of working out exactly what this means, production by production. This is in addition to the two weeks pay we’ve already committed to the crew and cast on productions we were forced to suspend last week."
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Beyond supporting its own staff, Netflix has allocated $15 million of the fund for third parties and non-profits providing emergency relief to affected workers in countries where Netflix has "a large production base." This includes donating $1 million a piece to the SAG-AFTRA Covid-19 Disaster Fund, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, and the Actors Fund Emergency Assistancein the United States as well as another $1 million divided between the AFCand Fondation des Artistes.
Netflix is making additional efforts to establish emergency relief services in other regions across Europe, Latin America, and Asia where the company has a sizable production presence. Details of additional donations in other countries will be announced next week, per Netflix's post.
SEE ALSO: Netflix's 'Tiger King' is the unbridled mayhem to watch this weekend"This community has supported Netflix through the good times, and we want to help them through these hard times, especially while governments are still figuring out what economic support they will provide," Sarandos said.
"What’s happening is unprecedented. We are only as strong as the people we work with and Netflix is fortunate to be able to help those hardest hit in our industry through this challenging time."
Topics Activism Netflix COVID-19