Disney Begins Latest Round of Layoffs

Morale must be incredibly low at the Walt Disney Company’s media divisions. Disney CEO Bob Iger announced this month that Disney+ lost more than four million subscribers, and ad revenue at Disney’s network, including ABC and ESPN, dropped 35 percent so far this year as more consumers cut the cable cord.

Disney’s media division has suffered through two rounds of job cuts that eliminated 4,000 jobs, mainly from Disney’s film and television production units. And Disney+ recently announced that they would be cutting many shows and movies from the platform to save money during the Writers Guild of America strike, which started on May 2.

Related: While Disney Laid Off Workers and Its Stock Tanked, Executives Made Millions

And now comes the third bloodletting for the Walt Disney Company. Deadline reports that the third round of layoffs has begun at Disney this week. These layoffs are not expected to touch the frontline operations roles at Parks and Resorts and aren’t necessarily aimed at a particular division within the company.

In February, Bob Iger announced that Disney would lay off 7,000 employees to save $5.5 billion. The first wave began in late March, and the second and most significant wave started in late April. Disney said the third and final layoffs would not begin until this summer.

This latest round of cuts is expected to eliminate around 2,500 jobs, bringing the total layoffs to 6,500. Over the next few months, the last 500 releases will come through more minor reductions.

Disney’s other two divisions are struggling outside of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products. CEO Bob Iger still has many tough decisions to make in the coming month, including whether to purchase the remaining percentage of Hulu from Comcast and create an ESPN product precisely like what customers currently have via cable.

With its ongoing feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Disney announced last week that it was canceling its $1 billion Lake Nona project, which would have brought 2,000 jobs to Florida. In a more embarrassing move on the same day, Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro announced that Disney was closing its Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience.

Iger used the first round of cuts to rid the company of anyone loyal to former CEO Bob Chapek. And now with the cancelation of the Lake Nona project, the entire Chapek era has been erased from Disney’s memory.

We will continue to update this story at Disney Fanatic.