Walt Disney Company announced hundreds of layoffs in its entertainment division on Monday, according to reports.
The bulk of the firings were in marketing for both film and TV, publicity, casting, development and corporate finance, sources told multiple outlets. Employees in the U.S. and abroad are among the affected, but most were based in Los Angeles. No teams were eliminated entirely.
Several executives are among the cuts, according to Deadline.
The company’s held several rounds of layoffs in the last year that focused on cuts in human resources, legal and finance, ABC News, FX, Freeform, National Geographic, Pixar and on-air talent at ESPN. The company also consolidated several teams involved in TV and streaming that led to other cuts.
Shortly after CEO Bob Iger returned to the company in 2023, more than 8,000 jobs were lost in a major cost-cutting movie.
The Walt Disney Company
Richard Drew/AP FILE – In this Aug. 8, 2017, file photo, The Walt Disney Co. logo appears on a screen above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Iger said recently the company had spent too much on streaming in an effort to compete with Netflix and needed to focus on quality over quantity. Still, the company is preparing to launch a standalone ESPN streaming service with a returning Rich Eisen.
“As our industry transforms at a rapid pace, we continue to evaluate ways to efficiently manage our businesses while fueling the state-of-the-art creativity and innovation that consumers value and expect from Disney,” a spokesperson told CBS News on Monday. “As part of this ongoing work, we have identified opportunities to operate more efficiently and are eliminating a limited number of positions today.”
A specific number of firings was not released, but the spokesperson described the decisions as “surgical” so as “to minimize the number of impacted employees.”
The company had about 233,000 employees at the end of September 2024, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
