After Twitter, Meta and Amazon layoffs, now Walt Disney Co is reportedly planning to take the road of sacking employees and freeze hiring. As per a Reuters report, a company’s memo mentions that Disney is expected to do this as “it strives to move the Disney+ streaming service to profitability against a backdrop of economic uncertainty.”
The Reuters report on Disney layoffs adds that Chief Executive Bob Chapek sent the memo to many leaders of the company. In the memo, it said that the company is instituting a targeted hiring freeze and expects “some small staff reductions.” Even though the scale of Disney’s layoffs are not expected to be as huge as those of Meta, Twitter and Amazon, the company is still reportedly doing this to manage costs.
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As per the report, Chapek wrote in the memo, “While certain macroeconomic factors are out of our control, meeting these goals requires all of us to continue doing our part to manage the things we can control – most notably, our costs.” It adds that this memo has reportedly come after Disney failed to meet Wall Street’s estimates for quarterly earnings.
As per the quarterly earnings, even though Disney’s fast-growing streaming service has managed to add close to 12 million subscribers in its fiscal fourth quarter, it has also shown an operating loss of nearly $1.5 billion. Even before this, many analysts raised red flags on Disney’s rising streaming costs, among other things.
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The Reuters report adds that Chapek has said that the layoffs at Disney “would not sacrifice quality.” With regards to freezing hiring, it is expected to be limited to a small subset of critical positions as the company has to make itself more cost effective. Additionally, even business travel is expected to be limited at Disney from now on.
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