Thousands Of Disney Workers Are Losing Their Jobs This Week
7,000 Disney employees are being let go this week due to budget cuts.
Disney is the entertainment juggernaut that now owns Star Wars and Marvel, and they continue to rake in money week after week at properties like Disney World. But it looks like the House of Mouse isn’t making nearly as much money as returning CEO Bob Iger wants, and he has been overseeing multiple rounds of layoffs that began on March 27. Now, Deadline reports that this week will be the biggest round of terminations yet, with Disney hoping to get halfway towards their goal of ultimately laying off 7,000 workers.
For better or for worse, these layoffs have not come as a surprise to any of Disney’s current employees. Iger made it clear when he returned as CEO last November that cutting company costs was going to be one of his top priorities. In addition to letting go of thousands of rank-and-file workers, he also made some high-profile terminations, including Kareem Daniel (formerly the head of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution).
If you’re a frequent guest of Disney World or Disney Land, here’s some good news: none of these thousands of layoffs are affecting Disney’s frontline staff at parks. In fact, Iger seems very determined to restore these vacation destinations to their pre-pandemic luster. But in making staffing cuts to entertainment, product, and sports divisions, Iger has been clear that he wants to cut costs whenever possible.
Why, though, is Disney worried about cutting costs in the first place? The short answer is that the company has been pouring much of its time, energy, and money into Disney+, and they aren’t exactly getting a solid return on investment. In fact, the streaming platform actually lost the company a billion dollars last quarter, which underscores the need to free up some quick cash by laying off workers.
How much is this measure going to really save the company, though? According to Disney’s estimates back in February, laying off all of these workers should help to effectively save $5.5 billion dollars. While that amount of money is nothing to sneeze at, it may eventually look like a mere drop in the bucket if Disney keeps bleeding money.
Given Disney’s financial woes, we can imagine the company wasn’t happy that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ended up being such a critical and commercial dud. This Marvel Cinematic Universe entry was supposed to set up Jonathan Majors as the next Big Bad for the Avengers, and now it looks like Majors might lose the role over recent allegations. At the same time that Disney is hoping to bring more money in from their proven franchises, they are now having to reduce how many movies and shows they release per year, and they may have to even recast their newest villain.
At the end of the day, all of these Disney layoffs don’t really do fans or creators any good. It’s an open secret that some of the most baffling decisions facing franchises like Star Wars and Marvel have been made by clueless executives busy running these creative legacies into the ground. We can only hope the talented workers affected by these layoffs find meaningful and fulfilling work far away from the gloved grasp of Mickey Mouse.
