Is Watchtower telling the truth about branch closures?

by slimboyfat 11 Replies latest members private

• 

  slimboyfat

  On page 205 of the God's Kingdo Rules book they explained the reason for recent branch closures this way:

  In recent years, however, a number of branch offices have been consolidated. Explaining some of the reasons, the 2013 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses said: “Improvements in communications and printing technology have reduced the number of personnel needed at larger branches. With fewer people serving at larger branches, room became available to house some who were working in smaller branches in other countries.

  Yet the figures in the yearbooks show that branch personnel numbers increased leading up to, and during the branch closures (personnel numbers on the left, number of branches on the right):

  
  

  2006	- 19328/		114
  2007	- 19581/		113
  2008	- 19820/		115
  2009 -	19829/		118
  2010 -	20062/		116
  2011 -	20595/		98
  2012 -	21612/		96
  2013 -	22719/		91
  2014 -	24711/		90
  2015 -	26011/		89

  
  

  .
  

  Can these figures be reconciled with the explanation quoted above?
• 

  konceptual99

  Of course it can SBF. As with most numbers in WT world more means less and less means more except when more means more and less means less. More or less.
• 

  berrygerry

  Bethel commuters?
• 

  LevelThePlayingField

  Doesn't make sense. The number at the branches is up by more than 6 thousand. How is that "reduced". It's simply more, not reduced. Good catch.
• 

  dropoffyourkeylee

  I know one person (US) who is a remote bethelite. She works from home, remotely, is considered a branch member, but doesn't live there. She works part time and pays her own rent. I don't know how common that is, but if they have gone that way, that would explain how branch numbers could go up with branch facilities going down.
• 

  stuckinarut2

  When I was at bethel in the 1990's, we were told at one bethel family meeting, that it cost $12-15 thousand dollars per year to house, feed and take care of each bethelite.

  The reality too was that many were there to simply support others who were there...ie, a lot of wasted assets. For example, a housekeeper may take care of 8 rooms on her run. Of those rooms, maybe 5 were for fellow cleaners, or cooks or laundry workers. Maybe only 3 rooms of people actually contributed to the direct work of producing the magazines, or administration work.

  So they spoke of increasing the commuter idea...so they would reduced numbers and hence expense, while at the same time getting enamoured witnesses to use THEIR OWN resources and money for the benefit of the Society.

  A WIN / WIN for the organisation
• 

  konceptual99

  The whole commuter worker thing is a stroke of genius. It's like interns working for free. Those who wish to spend time doing "full time service" get the cache of being a Bethelite yet they have to work for their own accommodation, food and everything.

  Just like an intern gives away their skills for free int turn for the opportunity to work in a certain place and make some contacts, so too the commuter worker is offering free labour to the organisation in return for increased exposure as a privileged person within the organisation.
• 

  slimboyfat

  I think darksilver said there was a statement somewhere that only resident bethelites are included in the figure.

  I also notice that Watchtower here uses one of their favourite ambiguities where they say they are giving "some of the reasons" , apparently allowing for the "honest" implication that there may be some reasons they are choosing not to disclose.

  The level of secrecy and the guarded ambiguities (not to say deceptions) employed by the organisation are astonishing. It runs so deep it becomes normalised.
• 

  darkspilver

  TBH, I think the WT hierarchy have generally not been particularly good at HR (human resources) management.

  As stuckinarut2 says above - there are A LOT of support staff (and the support staff themselves need support staff - they also eat, need own rooms etc etc)
  

  Arguably, in the past, they haven't really needed to worry about HR, until now...

  The number of Bethelites is taken from the Yearbook when it says:
  

  During the 2015 service year, Jehovah’s Witnesses spent over $236 million in caring for special pioneers, missionaries, and traveling overseers in their field service assignments. Worldwide, a total of 26,011 ordained ministers staff the branch facilities. All are members of the Worldwide Order of Special Full-Time Servants of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
  

  What was interesting is how the number/s were described in an Awake in 2000:

  Awake 22 December 2000, page 19

  Truly, it is remarkable that the number of branch offices has increased from one a hundred years ago to 109 today that serve the needs of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 234 lands. And to think that these are staffed by some 13,000 dedicated Christian volunteers! Surely, their work along with that of the some 5,500 volunteers associated with the Society’s headquarters has been vital to the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus Christ that ‘this good news of God’s Kingdom would be preached in all the inhabited earth before the end comes.’—Matthew 24:14.

  For 2000, the 13,000 number of Bethelites sound right for the time - but notice how there is a clear distinction with 'volunteers associated with the Society's headquarters' - they're not 'Family / Bethelites'

  Commuter workers who come in for a day or two, or as needed can work well - but work best when Bethels are in a built-up areas like Brooklyn or London, rather than Warwick or Chelmsford.

  Thanks to the internet, Remote workers can operate well - but are these types of workers actually called 'ordained ministers who staff the branch facilities' and counted?
  

  I think the Bethel arrangement (live-in staff, food, washing, cleaning taken care of, etc etc) worked well and made sense when it was first established in the 1910s, but due to a changes in costs, time and expectations, this set-up has become both out-moded and costly - BUT the WT is kinda stuck with it.

  If each Bethelite nowadays costs around $20,000 - it would probably be better to drastically cut the number, and employ ONLY those who do the work (on a low WT wage, $40,000??) and let them look after their own homes, do all their own cleaning, washing, cooking, and bring a packed-lunch in to 'work' - the physical foot-print of Bethel could then be drastically cut back leading to even more cost savings etc etc.

  It is almost no different to the WT employing non-JWs to do some of the major works at Warwick etc anyway!
  

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5639304585936896/revealed-number-bethelites-over-years

  Perhaps slimboyfat can explain how the Mormons staff (and remunerate) the LDS Church Headquarters?
  

  https://careers.lds.org
  
• 

  dozy

  The statement is the usual JW spin. Try telling the JWs in the New Zealand Bethel ( which was closed and sold to a Pentecostal group ) that there is a free office in Australia so we are moving you there. Yeah - right. The only reason for closing the smaller , regional Bethels ( many of which were little more than administration offices ) was to remove the Society "footprint" from many countries so they could claim not to exist there as a legal corporation and couldn't be sued.

  An old ex Bethelite in our congregation always used give a standard joke that when asked "How many people work at Bethel" he used to answer "about half of them". He usually added - "I'm serious - it's probably less than that". He once confided in me that in any comparable "head office" environment , any external consultants could easily cull the numbers by at least 50% - 70% by a combination of getting rid of surplus non productive staff and closing or outsourcing unnecessary peripheral activities such as laundry , dentistry , hairdressing etc.
  

  The problem is that with people chosen on the basis of "spiritual qualifications" ( ie devotion to the Org ) rather than actual ability to do the work , it isn't necessarily a skill based workforce , so you need more people than otherwise would be required. We had a brilliant graphic designer in our congregation who twice applied for Bethel only twice to be refused ( he had been DFd and reinstated as a teeenager and due to an attitude problem , never rose above MS grade in the congregation. )

  Add in the crony element , where higher-ups bring in people they like ( how often have you read an experience in the magazines where some GB member meets a JW and shortly afterward they are "invited to serve in Bethel" ). And the constant challenge of married couples . where you bring in one ( usually , but not always , a male ) and try to find some work for their wife / husband to do ( usually , in the case of females , add them to the vast number of cleaners that infest the long corridors desperately looking for the occasional piece of dust . )

  As a result , the total number of Bethelites , despite occasional smaller branch closures , will always bloat upwards.