Disney halts hiring, announces job cuts via company memo

The Walt Disney Company reportedly released an internal memo to inform its employees about an impending layoff. The note was sent by the company’s chief executive officer, Bob Chapek.

The mass media company is also halting its job hiring to cut costs. The CEO said that making such an announcement is not an easy task and in fact, he said that Walt Disney was forced to make "tough and uncomfortable decisions."

Based on the reports, Disney is planning to put its hiring on hold and will also terminate some jobs as it tries to push its Disney Plus streaming service to make more profits amid the current economic situation and uncertainty.

The hiring will stop in some places and employees could expect layoffs, and as indicated in Chapek’s memo, the reduction will only be small. This move is necessary to allow the company with managing costs.

As per CNN Business, the job cuts and hiring freeze came after Walt Disney missed quarterly earning estimates last week. The result was due to the accumulated losses incurred from its efforts in boosting Disney Plus. its shares also dropped by over 13% after the earnings results.

“While certain macroeconomic factors are out of our control, meeting these goals requires all of us to continue doing our part to manage the things we can control - most notably, our costs,” the Disney chief said in the memo that was published by CNBC. “Our transformation is designed to ensure we thrive not just today, but well into the future and you will hear more from our task force in the weeks and months ahead.”

He added, “I am fully aware this will be a difficult process for many of you and your teams. We are going to have to make tough and uncomfortable decisions but that is just what leadership requires, and I thank you in advance for stepping up during this important time.”

Meanwhile, Walt Disney employs about 190,000 staff but this number has been dropping every year since 2018.

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