NY Jets furlough some employees, but not players

The New York Jets football team is furloughing 60 employees on its business side for two weeks without pay.

Team officials told the New York Times that the June furloughs would prevent layoffs.

The furloughs will be in sales, marketing, public relations, finance, community relations, stadium and ticket operations, and general administration.

Notice one area missing from that list of jobs? Where are the players? With the average Jets player earning $750,000 last year, the team could save a lot of money by having each player take a week off from work.

Last year the Jets were 28th out of 32 NFL teams in average salaries for its players, so I guess the team is already saving money by not paying its players much. The average Tampa Bay Buccaneers player earned $1,424,054 last year, putting the Bucs at the top of the list.

Matthew Higgins, the Jets' executive vice president for business operations, said the team isn't in a financial crisis yet, but is preparing for the future.

"We've assembled a great deal of talent, and we're at the crossroads of building our new stadium, so we don't want to be shortsighted," Higgins told the Times. "To let people go and then rebuild the team didn't make sense. It was important to keep as many jobs as possible."

Tell that to the guy selling tickets who will be going without pay for two weeks. Maybe a few Jets linemen can stop by the office and help out those weeks.

Aaron Crowe is an unemployed journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read about his job search at www.AaronCrowe.net