Disney is gearing up for a significant round of layoffs, with some managers told to cut expenses by 20% on an annualized basis, Bloomberg News reported.
It would be the fourth round of job cuts in 2026 under Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro and affect the most number of staffers. The Bloomberg report, which cited anonymous sources, said some Disney operations “will be affected disproportionately,” but it did not provide details on which areas would suffer the brunt of the cutbacks. D’Amaro “aims to reinvest a portion of the savings into film and TV programming, technology and the theme parks and cruise ship businesses,” according to the report.
Disney declined to comment.
Disney has been planning a major restructuring of its TV operations, which would eliminate hundreds of jobs and consolidate divisions, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.
In August, Disney offered early-retirement buyout packages to longtime executives, as part of its ongoing cost-cutting efforts. That offer was available to U.S.-based employees at the director through EVP levels within the Disney Entertainment, ESPN and corporate divisions, with a minimum age of 50 and at least 10 years of service.
About the voluntary buyout offers, Walden said at the Bloomberg conference that the program “was extremely generous and gave a number of our long-tenured executives agency and the opportunity to make their own decisions around whether the timing was right to leave or to stay, knowing that this evolution will never stop, technology set their sights on our business, and we must survive and thrive and grow, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Disney is scheduled to report results for the September quarter, the company’s Q4 of fiscal 2026, on Nov. 17 before the market opens.
Other media companies are making job cuts, too. Netflix last month axed about 1,000 workers, and Skydance — the company formed via the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery — is expected to make significant layoffs by the end of the year.
