Workers at Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth's official home, have been told to prepare for a "long and painful" downturn amid the coronavirus lockdown. Lord Chamberlain Earl William Peel reportedly sent an email telling palace staff that their financial future of is uncertain.
In the summer, Buckingham Palace's state rooms are usually open to tourists that come in droves and raise the revenue of the historical site. However, there will be no tours this year due to the pandemic crisis, thus there will also be no income and no work coming in.
Peel said in his email that they have to assume this problem will continue for many weeks or months before the palace can "return to business as usual." In light of this development, palace aides are expected to have pay freezes or job cuts.
Buckingham Palace has, in fact, cut the jobs of 380 workers who are usually hired from July to October for the tourist visits. According to People, these workers were hired early this year but have been told there won't be any work.
A spokesperson from the palace, however, said that they were given the option to carry over the summer job for next year. It's unclear, however, if other workers in the royal household would also be impacted as Windsor Castle, Clarence House and the other properties of the royal family will not open for visits this year.
The palace spokesperson said that the attention is on ensuring that the Royal Household is following the guidelines of the government. The Queen, especially, wants to lead by example and support the government's efforts to beat COVID-19.
Queen Elizabeth decided to open Buckingham Palace for public visits 27 years ago to earn revenue. After Windsor Castle caught fire and damaged 115 rooms, the Queen opened Buckingham to paid tours to raise money for the castle's repairs and the royal aides have been doing these tours ever since.
This news comes as the annual Rich List showed that Queen Elizabeth's net worth dropped to $25 million (£20 million) because of the coronavirus. Aside from the closure of the palace tours, the Queen also apparently lost money in the stock market.
Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth's heir, Prince Charles, have furloughed 200 staff because of the pandemic. However, the future King is taking care of the salaries of these staff under The Prince Foundation. British taxpayers will apparently not shell out the money for this expense.
