Disney Conducts Third Round of Layoffs Under New CEO

The Walt Disney Company conducted a third round of significant layoffs this year, impacting several hundred employees, with the most recent cuts announced on Tuesday. These reductions primarily affected individuals in human resources and technology departments, according to a spokesperson for Disney who spoke with Deadline. This latest wave of job cuts follows previous warnings from the company about its focus on cost reduction. In its August earnings report, Disney stated, "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." The company indicated at the time that it was "mid-stream in this work and will provide future updates on progress." Further signaling these changes, Horacio Gutierrez, Disney's Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer, sent a memo on September 18, obtained by Deadline, warning of "hard choices" regarding "staffing investments." Gutierrez noted that "automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies" would become increasingly common at the company. These recent layoffs are part of a broader restructuring effort initiated since Josh D'Amaro took over as CEO earlier this year, replacing Bob Iger. The first major round of layoffs occurred in April, when D'Amaro oversaw the dismissal of approximately 1,000 employees. In a memo to staff at the time, D'Amaro explained the rationale, stating, "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 further elaborated that "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." A subsequent round of layoffs followed in July, which predominantly impacted employees working for Pixar and National Geographic. The cumulative effect of these three rounds of cuts signifies a substantial workforce adjustment under the new leadership, aimed at streamlining operations and adapting to evolving industry demands through technological integration and efficiency improvements.