Disney Starts 1,000 Job Cuts in First Major Layoffs Under Josh D’Amaro

Disney has begun cutting about 1,000 jobs across its media and corporate ranks, marking the first major workforce reduction under chief executive Josh D’Amaro and extending a cost campaign that has reshaped the company for nearly three years. Employees started receiving notices this week, with cuts hitting the marketing group, studio and television operations, ESPN, products and technology, and certain corporate functions.

D’Amaro framed the move as a response to rapid change across entertainment. In an email reviewed by Reuters, he told staff Disney must keep reassessing its structure to build a “more agile and technologically-enabled workforce.” The layoffs come less than a month after D’Amaro formally took over from Bob Iger on March 18, following Disney’s board decision in February to elevate the longtime parks executive to the top job.

The cuts center in part on a companywide marketing overhaul that Disney set in motion in January, when it named Asad Ayaz chief marketing and brand officer and placed him over a newly unified marketing organization. That restructuring had already signaled that Disney wanted fewer silos and tighter control over spending across film, television and streaming promotion.

The move lands at an awkward moment for the industry. Hollywood studios are still absorbing weaker linear television revenue, softer box office demand and fierce competition for consumer attention. The Los Angeles Times tied Disney’s cuts to those pressures, and Reuters reported that rival media groups have also reduced staff in recent months. Disney, though, is not acting from a position of immediate financial distress: its latest quarterly report showed revenue rising 5% to $25.98 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 27, with entertainment, sports and experiences all posting year-on-year gains.

That tension helps explain why the layoffs are drawing scrutiny. Disney employed about 231,000 people at the end of fiscal 2025, most of them in the United States, and many investors had viewed the post-Iger handoff as a test of whether D’Amaro would lean harder into efficiency while trying to protect creative momentum. The company already cut about 7,000 jobs in 2023 during an earlier restructuring push, so this latest round reads less like a one-off reset and more like a continuation of a long effort to remake Disney’s media business for a leaner era.