About 50 Port Canaveral employees have been furloughed through May 30th due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This is about 20% of the ports 250 employees. According to Florida Today the employees work in the cruise and recreational business segments of the port.
The furloughs started as of Friday, April 3rd, and will hopefully end on or by May 30th, but according to the port it’s “pending the resumption of cruise lines operations at Port Canaveral.” During this layoff the employees are still considered Canaveral Port Authority employees.
Four major cruise lines utilize Port Canaveral as their “base” including: Disney, Norwegian, Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Currently no cruise ships are operating so there is no need for the cruise employees.
Port Canaveral released this statement:
“While Port Canaveral is open and operating, the current pandemic situation has had significant impact on our businesses. In an effort to mitigate the economic challenges facing our port, we made the difficult decision to temporarily furlough employees dedicated to the port’s cruise operations and recreation business segments whose job functions are not required for current operations of the port.“
The port is remaining open for cargo shipping and that division is doing strong, but it looks like there might not be any cruises until at least June. The Port Authority is “remaining ready” for when they re-open, according to Canaveral Port Authority Vice Chair Wayne Justice:
“Most importantly, we’re staying ready. We are absolutely focused on staying ready to be able to turn back on, and to have the teams of people and the capabilities required to get particularly our main cruise passenger world going again. We are absolutely committed to this county, to this region.”
We will keep you posted when we hear more. Hopefully it will be reopened by June, but only time will tell.
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Source: Florida Today,
Photo credit: Florida Today
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