The Walt Disney Company is expected to undergo a massive restructuring effort. According to Bloomberg News (via Variety), Disney is planning thousands of layoffs, with some managers being told to cut costs by 20% on an annualized basis.
This cost-cutting measure would be the fourth round of job cuts Disney employees experience this year. Citing anonymous sources, the Bloomberg report says that certain operations “will be affected disproportionately,” but did not specify which areas will experience the most job cuts. Further, the report states that Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro “aims to reinvest a portion of the savings into film and TV programming, technology and the theme parks and cruise ship businesses”.
The move is part of Disney’s plan to majorly restructure its television operations, which would consolidate divisions, but also eliminate hundreds of jobs from the company. Disney let go of a few hundred employees — primarily in its human resources and IT departments — back in September, while hundreds of jobs were eliminated in July across Pixar, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television and Disney’s studios. Finally, to create a consolidated marketing division under Asad Ayaz, chief marketing and brand officer, D’Amaro eliminated 1,000 jobs back in April.
Disney has aimed to increase its revenue by various avenues over the past year. Back in September, Disney+ and Hulu raised their subscription prices. Disney also seems to be cutting back on some television efforts — Marvel Studios, for instance, is widely believed to be scaling back its Marvel Television projects. While new project, Zodiac, was announced last month, Marvel has announced that Daredevil: Born Again would be ending with its third season, while also canceling Wonder Man despite initially having ordered a season two for the program. There is no word yet on how this latest restructuring effort will affect different Disney divisions such as Marvel Studios.