About 300 corporate-level Disney employees have been laid off in a company effort to lower costs. A Disney rep spoke to Variety about the layoffs, detailing that “As part of this ongoing optimization work, we (Disney) have been reviewing the cost structure for our corporate-level functions and have determined there are ways for them to operate more efficiently.”
The departments affected by this round of layoffs include legal, human resources, finance, and others. In July, Disney axed about 140 workers in the television division. In a similar fashion, Pixar laid off about 14% of its workforce in May of this year, citing challenges with enticing families to return to theaters in the aftermath of Covid-19. These cuts come as Disney projects a profitable end to the fiscal year, with adjusted earnings per share growing 5%, up to 30% total. However, operating profit in Disney’s U.S. theme parks decreased by 6% in June. Despite this, June also marked Disney’s first profitable quarter for their direct-to-consumer streaming platforms: Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, beating out Wall Street estimates. Although these are profitable figures, the layoff was done “to fuel the state-of-the-art creativity and innovation that consumers value and expect from Disney.”
In 2023, Bob Iger returned as Disney CEO, and with his return came layoffs resulting in about 3% of Disney’s global workforce being let go, about 7,000 jobs. This round of layoffs continues the trend of Disney cutting down their work force to enhance productivity and quality.
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