News coming from Deadline reveals that Disney is starting layoffs under new CEO of the company Josh D’ Amaro. The layoffs are reportedly in the IT and HR departments and are in the 100s. According to Deadline’s sources, Disney’s television and motion pictures branch will not be affected by the layoffs. Earlier this month, an email was sent that warned employees of layoffs happening. In a memo sent by Horacio Gutierrez, Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer for Disney, he wrote,

Obviously, this will require hard choices about where and how we deploy our resources and investments, including our staffing investments and how we work will look different in the months and years ahead.

This memo was released the same day Disney appointed Karandeep Anand as Chief Technology Officer, who originally was the CEO of Character AI. The layoffs also come right at the deadline for Disney’s voluntary early retirement offer, an offer for employees who worked for the company for 10 years at a director level. Gutierrez wrote,

Josh’s [D’Amaro] vision is of a Disney that succeeds in a changing market by breaking internal walls and embracing technology to amplify what makes it great, not by clinging to the way things always have been done.

Stay tuned with mxdwn for more news on this developing topic.