Bob Iger Disney (YouTube clip)
Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed the company’s plans for how it will lay off 7,000 workers. The first round of layoffs, which were first revealed in February, are set to begin. It is estimated that 7,000 workers equate to about 3% of Disney’s total global workforce.
Bob Iger stepped back in as Disney CEO last November after a brief “retirement” and replaced Bob Chapek. Iger came back after people said the company had been mismanaged and in February he announced a $5.5 billion cost-cutting plan. It is hard to imagine Disney having financial problems considering all that it owns, including television networks, cable channels, the entire Marvel franchise and, of course, the copyrights to all of the original Disney characters like Mickey Mouse.
But first came the Covid crisis that shuttered all places of entertainment the world over – even Disneyland – then the post-Covid inflation followed by a financial crisis caused by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
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According to CNBC, Bob Iger wrote in a memo, “This week, we begin notifying employees whose positions are impacted by the company’s workforce reductions. Leaders will be communicating the news directly to the first group of impacted employees over the next four days.”
Bob Iger also said that Disney expects that a second, larger round of termination notifications is coming in April with what he called “several thousand more staff reductions,” and that he expects that the final round of terminations will be held before the beginning of the summer.
“We have made the difficult decision to reduce our overall workforce by approximately 7,000 jobs as part of a strategic realignment of the company, including important cost-saving measures necessary for creating a more effective, coordinated and streamlined approach to our business,” Iger added. “For our employees who aren’t impacted, I want to acknowledge that there will no doubt be challenges ahead as we continue building the structures and functions that will enable us to be successful moving forward.”
