Disney’s Year Of Cuts Continues With Thousands More Layoffs Expected

Disney is once again planning to eliminate thousands of jobs, continuing a year of repeated redundancies and broader employee-unfriendly cuts under new CEO Josh D’Amaro, even as the company commits billions to shareholder payouts and allocates substantial sums to new AI hires and tech upgrades.

According to Bloomberg, higher-ups have asked some managers to find ways to cut annual costs by 20%. Those savings, the report says, could come from job cuts and other expense reductions, with some parts of the company expected to be hit harder than others. To be clear, the 20% refers to cost savings, not a companywide target to eliminate 20% of Disney’s workforce.

D’Amaro reportedly intends to reinvest a portion of the savings in film and TV programming, technology, theme parks, and cruise ships. Disney declined to comment to Bloomberg. Neither the report nor Disney has specified the exact number of jobs to be eliminated or which operations will bear the brunt of the layoffs.

For Disney employees and the industry at large, this is becoming a painfully familiar routine in 2026. The company eliminated approximately 1,000 positions in April and hundreds more in July, followed by additional cuts in September. Those layoffs followed job losses tied to the consolidation of its marketing operations announced in January.

At Pixar alone, roughly 150 employees lost their jobs in July, despite a strong box-office year led by Hoppers and Toy Story 5.

Remaining employees have seen their benefits take a hit, too. Starting in 2027, Disney will restrict spousal health coverage when spouses can obtain insurance through their own employers, even if the alternative offers worse benefits.

This year’s constant cuts have hardly coincided with an economic downturn at Disney. In its fiscal third quarter, Disney reported $25.25 billion in revenue, up 7%, and $5.6 billion in operating income across its business segments, up 21%. It also raised its annual share-buyback target to at least $9 billion.

And last month, reports revealed that Disney planned to spend roughly $180 million over three years to compensate and retain 66 recruits from bankrupt chatbot company Character.AI, following its former CEO, Karandeep Anand, to Disney. That followed a proposed $1 billion investment in OpenAI, announced alongside a Sora licensing agreement in December 2025, that collapsed just over three months later, before any money changed hands.

We’ve seen nothing to establish that AI spending is directly driving these layoffs, but the company’s priorities are clear from where it is increasing spending and where it has chosen to cut costs.

There is money to reward shareholders, recruit AI talent, and invest in technology. For the employees already making its films, working in its parks, running its operations, and supporting its businesses, the directive is overwhelmingly clear: do more with less. At least for those still around.