At 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, the Walt Disney Company broadcasted a live audio earnings call, during which the first fiscal quarter of the 2023 fiscal year was discussed.
During this call, CEO Bob Iger revealed that the Walt Disney Company would experience a workforce reduction of 7,000 jobs, despite earnings that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations.
A reduction of this size effectively removes a little over 3% of the Walt Disney Company’s entire workforce (which consists of approximately 220,000 as of 2022). This massive workforce reduction is in an attempt to cut costs.
To put it plainly, Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced that 7,000 jobs will be cut in order to save billions of dollars. Specifically, the Walt Disney Company is attempting to earn cost savings of $5.5 billion. Of that $5.5 billion, it’s been confirmed that $2.5 billion are being allocated into “non-content costs,” according to Bob Iger. At this time, that’s as specific as the Walt Disney Company has been regarding the “non-content costs” themselves.
Immediately after making the announcement, Disney CEO Bob Iger claimed he did not make the decision to lay off 7,000 employees lightly, saying, “I have enormous respect and appreciation for the dedication of our employees worldwide.”
At this time, we are unsure which branch will be affected by the massive number of job cuts. However, in the fall of 2022, former Disney CEO Bob Chapek had also announced job cuts and had even hinted that more would be coming in the future. It seems that Bob Iger confirmed this during Wednesday’s earnings call.
Although we are unsure of which departments of the Walt Disney Company will take the hardest hits as far as workforce reductions go, we do know that Bob Iger is focused on reorganizing the company into three specific segments: two different entertainment units (one focusing on streaming, film, and TV, and one ESPN segment focused on sports), and one unit focused on Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products.
