Disney layoffs painful but necessary, president says

Walt Disney Company President Dana Walden said the company’s layoffs were “extremely painful” but necessary for its survival as Disney faces competition in streaming and cheaper production options from advances in AI tools.

“We’ve exited colleagues who I’ve worked with for most of my career,” Walden said Thursday at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles. “It is in many ways a harsh reality.”

US media reported that more than 300 people were laid off from Disney on Tuesday, most of them in human resources and information technology.

The latest cuts followed several rounds of cost-cutting in recent years. Trade media reported that Disney eliminated about 1,000 positions in April, mainly in marketing.

Walden said the company had also offered a group of executives a voluntary retirement option, giving them “the opportunity to make their own decision around whether the timing was right to leave or to stay.” It was not clear whether the latest layoffs used that initiative.

“There is a need to constantly evaluate how you’re structured,” Walden said. Disney did not immediately reply to a request for comment.