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Credit: Qilai Shen/BloombergFollowing a bombshell dropped by Disney CEO Bob Iger, the Walt Disney Company is gearing up for mass layoffs.
At The Walt Disney Company’s Q1 earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger shared a bombshell that shocked everyone in the Disney community. Iger revealed that the company would be cutting its workforce by 7,000 jobs. This is a whopping number, especially when considering the profits The Walt Disney Company posted shortly before this announcement.
The Walt Disney Company shared its ginormous profits, posting an increase of 35% on the Parks side of things. This translated into $2.1 billion from Disney’s collection of Parks alone.
Now, according to The Orlando Sentinel, managers at Disney have been asked to identify potential candidates by April. This first round will include 4,000 employees, with the remaining 3,000 layoffs coming from positions that will be eliminated entirely.
This move will affect employees company-wide. However, Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro stated earlier this year that he did not expect the layoffs to affect hourly workers on the front lines at Walt Disney World.
Eric Clinton, a union president for the Walt Disney World Resort said the Orlando, Florida Resort’s employees would not be fired because their positions are protected by a strong union contract.
“You don’t save the company money by cutting your lowest-paid workers,” said Clinton back in February.
Iger also revealed several other bombshells during the call, stating that we would be getting sequels to several beloved Disney franchises like Frozen, Toy Story, and Zootopia, as well as revealing that plans are being made to bring Pandora – The World of Avatar to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.
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