Disney Cuts 300 Jobs as D’Amaro Pushes ‘One Disney’ Overhaul

Walt Disney Co. eliminated nearly 300 positions this week, targeting its human resources and technology divisions as newly installed Chief Executive Josh D’Amaro accelerates a structural overhaul designed to dismantle internal corporate silos.

The layoffs represent the first major workforce reduction under D’Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger in March. Rather than applying cuts evenly across the entertainment conglomerate, the Burbank-based company concentrated the initial trims on back-office operations. Simultaneously, Disney launched a voluntary separation program offering early retirement packages to older executives. The final number of leaders expected to exit through that initiative later this year remains undetermined.

D’Amaro is building what he calls a “One Disney” operating model. The strategy aims to erase the fragmented corporate architecture that expanded significantly after Disney’s $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019. That deal layered new management hierarchies onto an already complex organization that had previously absorbed Pixar, Marvel Entertainment, and Lucasfilm over the preceding decade. Consolidating those distinct operational cultures into a single reporting structure has been a persistent challenge for Disney leadership since the Fox integration closed.

Employees across the studio and television divisions are bracing for deeper reductions. A significant restructuring of Disney’s television operations is anticipated early next year, which could result in hundreds of additional layoffs. The legal and government affairs department will also shrink, according to a recent internal memo from Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez.

Beyond personnel changes, Disney is fundamentally altering its direct-to-consumer footprint. Over the past year, executives have worked to establish Disney+ as the company’s singular streaming hub, systematically diminishing the Hulu brand and service. Hulu originally launched nearly two decades ago as a joint venture among major broadcast networks before Disney gradually acquired full control. Subsuming it reflects a broader industry realization that maintaining multiple standalone streaming applications fractures subscriber attention and inflates marketing costs.

Disney President Dana Walden addressed the workforce reductions Thursday during an appearance at Bloomberg News’ Screentime media conference in Hollywood. She characterized the early retirement initiative as a generous effort to give long-tenured executives agency over their departure timing.

“There is a need to constantly evaluate how you’re structured,” Walden said. “It is extremely painful. We’ve exited colleagues who I’ve worked with for most of my career and it is, in many ways, a harsh reality.”

She framed the ongoing evolution as a necessary response to shifting consumption patterns that have permanently eroded the highly profitable linear television economics that historically funded legacy studios. “Technology set their sights on our business, and we must survive, and thrive and grow,” she added.

The job losses compound a brutal contraction across Southern California’s entertainment sector. Traditional studios and television networks have shed tens of thousands of workers since the streaming investment bubble burst, a downturn exacerbated by twin labor strikes in 2023 that halted production pipelines. Below-the-line crew members in Los Angeles face mounting pressure as competing jurisdictions—including Georgia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia—deploy aggressive tax incentive programs to lure film and television shoots away from California. Unlike executive-level restructuring, these geographic shifts permanently relocate physical infrastructure and local vendor ecosystems.

Rival studios are executing similarly severe measures. Workers at Warner Bros. Discovery are preparing for David Ellison’s planned takeover of their company next week. Ellison and his leadership team have promised investors and prospective debt holders they will extract $6 billion in cost savings following the merger. The combined entity, which will operate under the Skydance name, will carry more than $80 billion in debt, creating immediate pressure to reduce overhead.

Walden suggested Disney’s overall restructuring would remain more measured than the sweeping cuts unfolding elsewhere in Hollywood.

A Disney spokesperson declined to comment on the specific scope or timeline of future reductions.