Disney Prepares Several Thousand Layoffs, Targets Up to 20% Cost Cuts

Disney is planning to cut several thousand jobs, and some managers have been told to trim costs by as much as 20%, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. Bloomberg reported the new round first. The scope makes this the largest single reduction since CEO Josh D'Amaro took the reins earlier this year.

The details are thin but the direction is not. Managers across the entertainment giant received the cost-reduction targets from above, according to people who asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. A 20% cut to a divisional budget rarely lands without headcount attached.

How did we get here?

This is the third restructuring wave of 2025, and it follows a clear escalation pattern.

• April: Plans to cut as many as 1,000 employees, predominantly in the marketing department.
• September: About 300 employees cut, many in human resources and technology divisions.
• Now: Several thousand more jobs on the block, with managers asked to find up to 20% in savings.

For context on scale: Disney employed about 231,000 people as of the close of its fiscal 2025, which ended in September, according to the company's annual financial report. Several thousand cuts would still be a low-single-digit percentage of the workforce — but concentrated pain for the divisions hit.

Executives have been telegraphing this for months. In the August earnings report, they warned more reductions were possible. D'Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston put it in writing to shareholders on Aug. 5: "We remain highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise to create incremental capacity to invest for growth and are evaluating a variety of levers. We are mid-stream in this work and will provide future updates on our progress."

That's a CFO's way of saying the cutting isn't done. And the timeline they've signaled runs into next year.

What does this change for Disney employees?

Involuntary cuts have already started in some areas, and the company has told staff they'll continue into next year. Chief People Officer Sonia Coleman was direct about it in an Aug. 24 letter to employees: "This is one of several actions we're taking to reshape our organization, including involuntary staff reductions that have already begun in some areas and will continue into next year."

Disney also introduced an early retirement program for some employees in August, per the company's announcements. That gives a slice of the workforce an exit on negotiated terms — everyone else waits to see whether their unit's manager gets handed a 20% target.

For practitioners inside the company, the practical reading is this: corporate functions and marketing have absorbed the first two rounds, and the breadth of the manager-level cost mandates suggests the next wave won't stay contained there.

Disney isn't acting alone

The cuts land in an industry-wide belt-tightening. Netflix said in a memo last month that it would lay off roughly 6% of its workforce. Skydance — the newly combined company of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery — is expected to cut staff as it chases $6 billion in synergies over three years.

So this isn't a Disney-specific demand problem. It's the majors collectively trading headcount for streaming-era margins, and Disney's move suggests the industry window for soft landings has closed.

The next hard data point arrives Nov. 17, when Disney reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. That's when D'Amaro and Johnston will face questions on how many thousands of jobs the cost levers actually pull — and how much of the savings goes to growth investment rather than the bottom line.