The Walt Disney company is preparing to lay off 1,000 workers in a bid to “streamline operations”. The US-based firm will axe jobs across its film studio and television businesses, with employees in product, technology and certain corporate functions also affected. Josh D’Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger as chief executive in February, announced the cuts following consolidation of Disney’s marketing division at the beginning of the year.
Disney last enacted sweeping job cuts after Mr Iger retured for a second spell as chief executive in 2022, scrapping around 8,000 roles. The conglomerate, which had around 230,000 employees in late 2025, faces challenges including a declining television business, shrinking box office and heightened competition from other Hollywood studios including Warner Bros and Paramount.
Employees were notified of the upcoming job cuts in an memo from Mr D’Amaro this week, according to the Associated Press.
He wrote: “Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney.
“Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs.”
Mr D’Amaro has worked at Disney since 1998, and previously oversaw the company’s lucrative parks division.
Other studios including Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount Skydance have also recently undergone layoffs to cut costs.
Sony Pictures Entertainment confirmed plans to axe around 12,000 global roles in early April, with the Starz TV network cutting 7% of jobs in March and video game publisher Epic Games cutting 1,000 roles in the same month.
As well as reeling from a rapidly changing business landscape, the film and TV production industry is continuing to adjust to artificial intelligence (AI) and recover from the Covid pandemic, Hollywood strikes and a series of wildfires that broke out in California last year.
