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Disney has joined the wave of layoffs once again with the third round of job cuts. Recently, the company has laid off hundreds of people across several departments. Though the exact numbers are still unknown, reports indicate that this time the majorly affected divisions include HR and IT departments. The move wasn’t sudden, but it came after a letter from CEO Josh D’Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston to the shareholders regarding reduced spending and workforce restructuring.
This third round of layoffs followed the previous two rounds, in which Disney eliminated more than 1,000 roles. In April, the company created a single enterprise marketing team and eliminated multiple positions in the process. Next, in July this year, again several hundred Disney employees lost their jobs, especially those who were related to Pixar, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and Disney’s studios. The company also offered early-retirement packages to some senior executives in August.
Disney is trying to bring down costs while making room to spend on areas it sees as important for future growth. In an August letter to shareholders, D’Amaro and Johnston said “We remain highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise to create incremental capacity to invest for growth and are evaluating a variety of levers including reductions in labor and SG&A.”
The latest cuts show that Disney’s cost-saving drive is continuing. Instead of one large round, the company has made changes in stages across different teams and business units.
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The layoffs are also part of D’Amaro’s early moves as Disney CEO. One of his first major changes was creating a combined marketing division in April. Since then, Disney has made more changes across its corporate and entertainment teams. The company has also looked at early retirement for senior staff. These moves show a wider effort to make Disney leaner while freeing up money for growth.
For employees, another round of cuts brings fresh uncertainty; for Disney, the latest move marks another step in D’Amaro’s plan to reshape the company and control its costs.
