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Disney is heading into another round of job cuts, with up to 1,000 employees expected to be laid off in the coming months. The move marks the first major workforce reduction since Josh D’Amaro stepped in as the company’s new CEO, signaling that Disney’s push to streamline operations is far from over.
According to reports confirmed by Deadline, the cuts will affect only a small portion of Disney’s vast global workforce, which stood at more than 230,000 employees at the end of the last fiscal year. A large share of that total is made up of part-time staff working across the company’s theme park business, but the latest reductions are tied more closely to Disney’s entertainment divisions.
Much of the current restructuring appears to be linked to Disney’s broader effort to unify marketing operations across film, television, and streaming. Earlier this year, longtime executive Asad Ayaz was promoted to Chief Marketing and Brand Officer as the company moved to centralize strategy and eliminate overlapping roles. That shift is now translating into layoffs, particularly in areas where Disney believes responsibilities have been duplicated.
The number may sound large, but in Disney terms, it is still modest compared with the sweeping cuts carried out during Bob Iger’s return. Between 2023 and 2025, Disney eliminated around 8,000 jobs across several rounds of layoffs, ultimately delivering roughly $7.5 billion in savings. That total went well beyond the company’s original targets and became one of the clearest signs of how aggressively Disney was willing to reshape itself in response to industry pressure.
And Disney has hardly been alone. Across the media and entertainment business, studios and streaming giants have spent the past two years trimming costs, merging departments, and rethinking how content gets marketed and distributed. Disney’s most recent layoff wave before this one came in June, when several hundred employees were cut globally from Disney Entertainment. Teams tied to film and television marketing, TV publicity, casting, development, and corporate finance were all affected.
That June reduction was especially notable because it was the fourth, and biggest, round of layoffs in less than a year affecting Disney’s television operations. In other words, this is not a one-off correction. It is part of a longer pattern as Disney continues recalibrating its business for a media landscape shaped by streaming competition, rising production costs, and pressure from investors to protect margins.
D’Amaro was officially named Disney CEO on February 3 and formally took over on March 18 during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. His appointment closed the book on Bob Iger’s extraordinary 52-year run with the company, including two separate terms as chief executive. Now, with these layoffs arriving early in D’Amaro’s tenure, the message is becoming clear: Disney’s next chapter may look leaner, faster, and far less sentimental than its past.
For a company built on fantasy, the reality is getting sharper by the day.
Source: deadline
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