Theaters are going to want to keep as much of their staff as possible, having to train new people when theaters are able to open again is only going to add expenses and slow things down.
I’m sure many of the theaters would have wanted to keep paying their employees, but without income from ticket and concession sales, there was no way for most to do that.
Certainly, some movie theater employees aren’t making a great deal of money in the job, and regardless of how much anybody working at a theater makes, the loss of that income entirely is almost certainly going to hurt.