Following the news of Lionsgate workforce reductions in their motion picture group, came the announcement by Deadline that even more layoffs will also be happening at Disney, including major reductions at ESPN. In Disney Studios, cuts will be mainly made in the marketing department and the theatrical stage group based in New York. At Searchlight Pictures, a division of Disney, six people are confirmed to be let go. More exact numbers for the overall studio layoffs have not yet been released, but Deadline has confirmed that several hundred open positions will be eliminated as well.
The cuts at ESPN removed hundreds of jobs, with 6% of their global workforce being let go. Disney Parks also faced about 28,000 cuts in the theme park divisions of California and Florida. This included 720 performers from Walt Disney World in Orlando who were cut last week.
Right now it’s looking like Disney made the right call in investing heavily in streaming, with the launch of Disney + that has been the release platform for their new films this year including Mulan and Soul. However, with the mass restructuring that lends itself towards the digital landscape, there are sure to be many casualties from other departments as we are already seeing with these many workforce reductions.
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