Disney Cuts a Couple Hundred Jobs in Tech and HR

Disney has initiated layoffs impacting a couple of hundred employees, largely in tech and HR, as part of cost-cutting under CEO Josh D'Amaro.

Layoffs Announced

Disney has initiated layoffs affecting a couple of hundred employees, primarily in technology and human resources, according to Deadline. The cuts are smaller than the two previous rounds earlier this year. The company had 231,000 employees as of the end of fiscal 2025, with 172,000 in the U.S. and 59,000 elsewhere. Of those, 16% are part-time and 8% are seasonal, largely due to theme parks and resorts.

Areas Affected and Spared

The current reductions impact shared functions like tech and HR. Disney Entertainment Television, which is expected to undergo a major restructuring under new head Debra OConnell, is not affected. The motion picture studio is also exempt. Reports vary on the exact number: Variety, Reuters, and Fox Business say a few hundred; Deadline says a couple of hundred; CNBC puts it at about 300, citing an unnamed source.

Context of Cost-Cutting

The cuts follow a voluntary early retirement offer to employees at or above director level who are 50 or older and have been with the company for at least 10 years. That process concluded with the cooling-off period ending this past weekend. Talk of layoffs grew after a September 18 memo from Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer Horacio Gutierrez, who warned of hard choices about staffing investments and described a transformation process that includes automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies. The memo did not name AI directly, but it was widely shared partly due to the notion that artificial intelligence was likely to contribute to downsizing. Unspecified job cuts within the LGA department, which has a bit less than 1,000 members globally, are not connected to the latest round.

Previous Rounds Under D'Amaro

CEO Josh D'Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger last March, has overseen multiple rounds of layoffs. The first came last April, when 1,000 positions were cut. Several hundred more followed in July, mostly at Pixar and National Geographic. In an August 5 letter to shareholders, D'Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston said the company remains highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise to create incremental capacity to invest for growth and is evaluating a variety of levers, including reductions in labor and SG&A. They added that the work is mid-stream and promised future updates.

Broader Industry Pressures

The layoffs come amid concerns about AI's impact on staffing, Big Tech competition, falling box office revenue, and heavy streaming competition. Chief People Officer Sonia Coleman said involuntary job cuts would continue into next year. The Hollywood Reporter says Disney is increasingly using AI as a tool for restructuring, changing how corporate teams are staffed and organized. While the cuts are another jolt to Hollywood, they are a fraction of the 8,000 workers let go between 2023 and 2025 under Iger, which helped achieve $7.5 billion in cost savings, far higher than initial forecasts.

Scale and Timing

The latest cuts are the lightest so far in 2026. Disney posted strong results for its fiscal third quarter in August, but says the cuts are part of a plan to reshape how it works, focusing on cost control and spending in areas it deems priorities. The company has not put out a public statement in the reports seen so far.