Disney plans to cut up to 1,000 jobs in first layoffs under CEO D'Amaro
Many of the cuts will come from its recently consolidated marketing department, which was unified under a single chief marketing officer
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As many as 1,000 jobs could be cut at Disney $DIS over the next several weeks, marking the first notable wave of workforce reductions since Josh D'Amaro took the helm as CEO.
A large share of the cuts will fall on Disney's marketing department, which the company consolidated under a single chief marketing officer for the first time in January, according to Deadline and Variety. Asad Ayaz, a longtime Disney executive, was appointed chief marketing and brand officer in January and tasked with unifying the company's fragmented marketing functions across its film, television, and streaming businesses while weeding out redundancies. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the layoffs, said Ayaz's plan carries the internal code name Project Imagine.
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At the close of fiscal year 2025, Disney's global workforce totaled roughly 231,000 people. The experiences division — which encompasses theme parks and consumer products — accounts for around four in five of those workers. Reductions over recent years have largely been concentrated in the entertainment, ESPN, and corporate segments rather than in parks or the cruise business.
The planned cuts are a fraction of those that took place under D'Amaro's predecessor. Under Bob Iger, successive rounds of cuts between 2023 and 2025 brought total job losses to roughly 8,000 and generated approximately $7.5 billion in savings. Disney has also been working with consultants from Bain & Co. to guide its cost-cutting strategy, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal also noted that plans for the current layoffs were set in motion before D'Amaro formally took over.
Separately, The Journal reported that Disney has been integrating the workforces behind Disney+ and Hulu as the company works to fold both streaming services into one unified platform.
D'Amaro officially became CEO on March 18, taking over at Disney's annual shareholder meeting after the board voted unanimously to appoint him in February. His Disney tenure stretches back to 1998, when he joined Disneyland, and in the years that followed he accumulated experience across a broad set of roles — among them CFO of Disney Consumer Products Global Licensing and resort president at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World — before being elevated to lead the parks, cruises, consumer products, and Imagineering operations in 2020. That division generated $36 billion in annual revenue in fiscal year 2025.
D'Amaro's first week as CEO included a letter to employees outlining priorities around storytelling, company cohesion, and new technology. According to The Wall Street Journal, D'Amaro has yet to announce a broader strategic blueprint for the company, though sources familiar with his thinking say he is focused on breaking down internal silos so that business units can work together with greater speed and coordination.
Disney hasn't commented on the layoff plan.