Disney will begin the second round of layoffs this week, sources told Reuters. The latest layoffs will take the number of reductions to 4,000. This decision will affect every company corner, including ESPN, Disney Parks, Disney Entertainment, and Experiences and Products. The media giant plans to save at least $5.5 billion in costs by decreasing up to 7,000 jobs. Although, the ongoing layoff strategy will not impact hourly frontline employees who work at the company’s resorts and parks.
The company will commence the third round of layoffs before summer.
In February this year, Disney started restructuring itself by laying off thousands of employees. Under this reorganisation strategy, the prominent mass media company aims to make business operations more streamlined by augmenting creative executives’ decision-making authority.
Disney Entertainment co-chairs, Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, informed the staff about the layoffs via a released memo on Monday. “These are hard decisions and not ones we take lightly — but every decision has been made with considerable thought, and we are doing everything we can to make sure this process is conducted with respect and compassion,” Bergman and Walden pointed out in their released note.
One of the scenarios that have forced Disney to take such an extreme step is facing stiff competition from rivals, such as Netflix, in terms of streaming. Several established media companies have already lost billions of dollars while attempting to launch streaming services that could give tough competition to Netflix.
Netflix’s historic loss of subscribers at the beginning of 2022 forced many media firms to curb their expenditures, including Disney, and Wall Street started concentrating more on profitability than subscriber growth. Stay tuned for more updates.