The Walt Disney Company is setting the stage for further cuts, which could affect thousands of people.
According to sources, the new round of layoffs will affect several divisions, including the television networks and the movie studio, at varying amounts. As is usual when preparing for workforce reductions, managers of the affected teams have been set targets, with some being asked to make up to 20% annual savings, it is said.
Disney declined to comment on the latest cuts, first reported by Bloomberg, whose exact timeline is unclear.
Layoffs occurred at Disney throughout the year after Josh D’Amaro succeeded Bob Iger as CEO on March 18. In April, 1,000 positions would be eliminated, followed by several hundred in July, with Pixar and National Geographic among the hardest hit divisions.
The process accelerated in August when the entertainment conglomerate extended a voluntary early retirement offer to its longtime executives. This process has now been completed, with some sources indicating that more eligible managers have opted for the package than expected. VERO has always been seen as a precursor to layoffs.
“This is one of many actions we are taking to reshape our organization, including involuntary staff reductions that have already begun in some areas and will continue into next year,” Sonia Coleman, Disney’s executive vice president and chief human resources officer, wrote in a memo in August.
Since then, a few hundred employees were laid off in late September, largely in areas such as technology and human resources, and last week another 100 to 200 employees in its Experiences division were laid off, the majority of them at Disney’s Imagineering campus in Glendale.
“I think like all of our competitors in the same situation, and certainly all of our competitors in the tech industry, there’s a need to constantly evaluate how you’re structured,” Dana Walden, president and chief creative officer of The Walt Disney Company, said of continued layoffs at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference last month. “Technology has set its sights on our business, and we must survive, thrive and grow. That’s what we’re going to do.”
D’Amaro has focused on cutting costs since ascending to Disney’s top job earlier this year. During Disney’s latest earnings call, he talked about using some of his savings to invest in areas of growth.
“When our teams work smarter, we can serve more people across our fleets and digital platforms and do it more profitably,” he said. “This frees up capital to aggressively reinvest in what drives long-term value: new content and next-generation customer experiences, and the technology infrastructure that keeps Disney at the forefront of entertainment.”
Disney’s global workforce stood at just over 230,000 people at the end of the last fiscal year.
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