Credit: Disney The Walt Disney Company has revealed even more layoffs as CEO Josh D’Amaro continues a slew of cost-cutting measures.
D’Amaro has moved quickly to trim Disney’s workforce since taking over from Bob Iger in March. Roughly a month into his tenure, the company eliminated roughly 1,000 roles, with marketing teams across Disney’s studios, television networks, ESPN, product and technology, and corporate operations bearing the brunt of the cuts.
Another round followed in July, when Disney cut several hundred more jobs. Pixar was particularly heavily affected on the studio side, primarily across production and operations, while National Geographic saw the majority of Disney Entertainment Television’s cuts. ESPN also lost staff as it integrated NFL Network.
Now, Disney is targeting even more departments.
Another Round of Disney Layoffs Announced
This latest round is expected to impact a couple of hundred employees, according to Deadline. The cuts are concentrated largely in shared corporate functions, including technology and human resources, and are smaller than the two previous rounds of layoffs Disney carried out earlier this year.
Disney Entertainment Television is reportedly untouched by the current reductions, despite a major restructuring expected under its new leader, Debra OConnell. The company’s motion picture studio is also exempt from this round, with the cuts instead falling predominantly outside Disney’s core film and television operations.
The layoffs arrive days after Disney’s chief legal and global affairs officer, Horacio Gutierrez, warned employees that his division would become “a much smaller organization.” His September 18 memo outlined plans to automate some workflows, adopt self-service systems, use alternative legal providers, and outsource certain work.
Gutierrez said the transformation would require “hard choices” around staffing and investment. Disney’s Legal and Global Affairs operation employs fewer than 1,000 people worldwide, although reductions within that department are separate from the wider round of layoffs now underway.
The cuts also follow Disney’s voluntary early retirement offer for employees aged 50 or older who hold at least a director-level position and have spent 10 years or more at the company. Deadline noted that such programs often precede involuntary layoffs, with the offer’s cooling-off period ending this past weekend.
D’Amaro had already signaled that more cost-cutting was coming. In Disney’s August 5 shareholder letter, he and CFO Hugh Johnston said the company remained focused on reducing costs, including through potential labor and SG&A cuts, adding that Disney was still “mid-stream in this work.”
Even so, the scale remains far below the reductions overseen by Bob Iger after his 2022 return. Disney cut roughly 8,000 jobs between 2023 and 2025, contributing to $7.5 billion in cost savings — significantly above the company’s original target.
The moves follow the release of a controversial book from Iger’s successor (and predecessor) as CEO, Bob Chapek. The former executive defended his own reputation as a cost-cutter within The Walt Disney Company, arguing that his willingness to pursue efficiency and higher returns was repeatedly treated as a liability.
Chapek also stands by some of the decisions that made him unpopular with Disney fans, including aggressive price increases at the theme parks and charging for services that had previously been free. In Behind the Castle Walls, he argues that Disney had been leaving revenue on the table and points to profit growth during his tenure leading the parks. He also blasted Iger himself, telling CNBC that he was “actually working against me, actively.”
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