Hundreds more layoffs just hit Disney, as workers had been anticipating.
On Tuesday, Deadline was the first to report that the company’s most recent cuts would impact several hundred employees. A spokesperson for Disney told the outlet that the layoffs primarily impact those in human resources and technology roles.
Prior to the announcement, Disney had warned in its August earnings report that cuts were looming: “We remain highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise to create incremental capacity to invest for growth and are evaluating a variety of levers, including reductions in labor and SG&A,” Disney said in that report. “We are mid-stream in this work and will provide future updates on progress.”
Likewise, in a September 18 memo obtained by Deadline, Disney Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer Horacio Gutierrez warned that some “hard choices” about “staffing investments” were coming, as “automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies” would become common practices at the company.
The latest round of cuts are certainly not the first made by the company since its new CEO Josh D’Amaro came on board earlier this year, replacing Bob Iger. In April, D’Amaro oversaw the layoffs of around 1,000 employees. In a memo obtained by the Associated Press that was sent to employees at the time, D’Amaro explained the decision.
“Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney,” he said.
The CEO continued, “Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”
The layoffs were followed by another round in July, which mostly impacted those who worked for Pixar and National Geographic. Overall, there have now been three rounds of cuts already this year under D’Amaro.
Disney’s continued restructuring comes as snippets of former CEO Bob Chapek’s memoir, which discusses his time at the company and his firing, have been circulating. Selections of the book allege that he was something of a scapegoat for challenges at the company, in addition to being blindsided by being dismissed. Iger handpicked Chapek to take over his role, then succeeded his own replacement.
Disney isn’t the only Hollywood production company shedding employees as AI stands to automate more tasks and as streaming continues to take over media. Bad Robot and Sony Pictures made cuts in April, as well.
And in January, Paramount Skydance’s CEO David Ellison laid out plans to achieve about $6 billion in cost savings if Paramount succeeded in buying Warner Brothers. This month, the company cleared its final hurdle to do just that.
