Disney is moving into its next phase of cost cutting just weeks into a new leadership era, with plans to lay off as many as 1,000 employees in the coming months, according to a source familiar with the matter. Much of the impact is expected to fall on the company’s marketing department, which underwent a significant restructuring earlier this year.
The planned reductions mark the first major workforce action under Josh D’Amaro, who officially took over as Disney’s chief executive on March 18 after being selected to succeed Bob Iger as CEO in early February. All 10 Disney board members, along with Iger himself, voted unanimously to appoint D’Amaro to the role.
A marketing department already in transition
The company’s marketing division has been in the middle of a structural overhaul since January, when the company named Asad Ayaz as its first-ever chief marketing and brand officer, a newly created role designed to bring all of the company’s marketing operations under a single executive for the first time. Ayaz, who reports directly to D’Amaro and Dana Walden, Disney’s president and chief creative officer, now oversees marketing across all three of the company’s major divisions: entertainment, experiences and sports.
The consolidation of previously separate marketing teams into one unified structure was always expected to create redundancies, and sources familiar with the situation noted at the time that the full shape of the reorganized department had not yet been finalized. The incoming layoffs appear to be the next step in that process, eliminating positions that overlap in the newly streamlined organization.
Disney’s history of cost-cutting under pressure
This is not the first time the company has turned to large-scale workforce reductions to stabilize its business. When Iger returned for his second stint as CEO in late 2022, he inherited a company facing a declining stock price, missed earnings expectations and a sense of strategic drift. By February 2023, Disney had announced sweeping restructuring plans that eliminated 7,000 jobs, reorganized the company’s structure and targeted $5.5 billion in cost savings.
That earlier round of cuts represented one of the most significant workforce reductions in the company’s modern history, affecting roughly 3% of a global workforce that currently stands at approximately 231,000 full- and part-time employees. About 76% of Disney’s workforce is full-time, with around 172,000 of those employees based in the United States.
D’Amaro steps into a changed company
D’Amaro brings a background rooted in Disney’s theme parks and experiences business. He joined the company in 1998 at Disneyland and held a range of roles over the following decades, including chief financial officer of Disney Consumer Products Global Licensing, president of Disneyland Resort, president of Walt Disney World Resort and, most recently, chairman of Disney Experiences. He was elevated to that role in May 2020.
At the company’s investor day in March, D’Amaro acknowledged the significant work Iger had done to steady the business during his second tenure, pointing specifically to efforts to rebuild the studios, establish a profitable streaming operation, prepare ESPN for a digital future and expand the parks and experiences division.
The new CEO is now tasked with carrying that momentum forward while managing the economic uncertainties that are creating pressure across the broader media landscape. Disney is not alone in making cuts. Sony Pictures Entertainment has confirmed plans to eliminate hundreds of positions, and other major entertainment companies have announced similar moves in recent months.
The company declined to comment on the layoff plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.
What comes next
The full timeline and scope of the reductions have not been publicly announced. For the employees in Disney’s marketing department and elsewhere in the company, the coming weeks will bring significant uncertainty as the new leadership team finalizes the structure it wants to carry forward into the next chapter of the business.