Disney to cut 7,000 jobs part of company restructuring, CEO Bob Iger announces

Disney to cut 7,000 jobs part of company restructuring

The Walt Disney Company will slash 7,000 jobs in an effort to cut costs and will be restructured into three core business segments, CEO Bob Iger revealed Wednesday during the company's first-quarter earnings call.

ORLANDO, Fla. - The Walt Disney Company will slash 7,000 jobs in an effort to cut costs and will be restructured into three core business segments, CEO Bob Iger revealed Wednesday during the company's first-quarter earnings call.

Iger said the company would be restructured into three core business segments: Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, and that streaming would continue to be a focus for the company. Those changes would be implemented immediately.

Across the company, Disney is hoping to cut $5.5 billion, of which $2 billion was expected to come from labor reductions, according to the call. An executive said the reductions would be about 50% marketing, 30% labor, and the rest would be in tech, procurement, and other areas.

"After a solid first quarter, we are embarking on a significant transformation, one that will maximize the potential of our world-class creative teams and our unparalleled brands and franchises," Iger said in a statement.

"We believe the work we are doing to reshape our company around creativity, while reducing expenses, will lead to sustained growth and profitability for our streaming business, better position us to weather future disruption and global economic challenges, and deliver value for our shareholders," he said.

Iger said these decisions would help the company become more cost-effective, coordinated, and streamlined.

FOX News Business Contributor Gary Kaltbaum told FOX 35 News that right now, it’s difficult to gauge the impact those layoffs will have on the state of Florida, but he said he thinks the impacts will be mostly on the content creation side and management, rather than on the parks. "The parks have been doing pretty darn well. Those numbers have been terrific, going great here and pretty much around the globe. Streaming – that’s an issue. They were down 1% quarter over quarter, but still, 161 million people. But streaming’s got to be an issue going forward, and that is just tremendous competition."

Disney is also rethinking some of its management strategies, which Kaltbuam believes could be a good thing. "Over the recent years, Disney creators of movies and TV would create something and have to send them up to the suits – as they would say – to make the decisions. Now they’re going to put the decisions back in the content creators’ hands, and that’s a good thing."

During Wednesday's quarterly earnings call Iger and his executive team also made a number of other announcements

When does The Mandalorian return to Disney+?

Iger said The Mandalorian's third season would stream on Disney+ in early March.

More sequels on the way

More sequels are on the way for some of Disney's most popular franchises. Iger announced that more projects for Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia were in the works. "We'll have more to share about these productions soon," he said.