Today Bloomberg is reporting that Disney will cut thousands of jobs next week as part of its already announced cuts. This is one more step in Disney’s plans to cut 15% of its staff across its entertainment division.
This will include cuts to its TV, film, theme parks, and corporate teams in all areas. Notifications of the cuts will start reaching employees as soon as April 24th.
Disney’s CEO sent a memo to staff last month, according to Deadline, that there will be three rounds of cutbacks, the second confirmed to be the largest. This week’s round, being the first, comes a few days before Disney’s annual shareholder meeting held on April 3rd. Iger announced plans for downsizing back in February, saying it is the key to reaching $5.5 billion in cost savings. Managers at Disney have been working to finalize details of the new structure during the following weeks.
Iger included in the memo to all employees, “In tough moments, we must always do what is required to ensure Disney can continue delivering exceptional entertainment to audiences and guests around the world – now, and long into the future.”
In total, once all cuts are made, Disney plans to cut about 7,000 jobs. This is reportedly being done by both not filling empty jobs and laying off as many as 5,000 employees.
Already some cuts have started, with Hulu shutting down a research center in China as an example of one of the cuts. According to Deadline Hulu could see major staff cuts as part of Disney’s efforts to cut staffing company-wide by 7,000 employees. For now though layoffs at Hulu have not been major to this point.
Cord Cutters News will have full updates next week as we learn more about how these layoffs will impact their streaming services.