Disney announces hiring freeze, layoffs amid quarterly loss of $1.5 billion

Walt Disney announced hiring freeze and layoff as a part of cost-cutting measure as the streaming business suffers loss. Chief Executive Bob Chapek in a memo on Friday addressed executives at senior vice president level or above, said that they have to make 'tough and uncomfortable decisions.'

Walt Disney Co., a production and streaming corporation, reportedly plans to eliminate some positions following internal reviews. In response to the disappointing quarterly results, Disney CEO Bob Chapek plans to freeze hiring and remove certain roles, according to a leaked internal document. About 190,000 individuals are employed at Disney.

CEO Bob Chapek stated in a message, "We are reducing personnel additions through a targeted hiring freeze." He further said, "Hiring will continue for a select subset of the most important, business-driven roles, but all other roles are on pause. More particular information on how this will relate to your teams is available from your segment leaders and HR teams."

The message said, "We do anticipate some employee layoffs as part of this assessment. As we proceed through this evaluation process, we will look at every avenue of operations and labour to discover savings."

Walt Disney's quarterly results were lacklustre, and the stock of the business fell sharply in recent months, hitting its 52-week low on Wednesday. The company is taking this action in an effort to make its streaming service viable after announcing a $1.5 billion quarterly deficit. The company's shares decreased by more than 13% following its report on Wednesday.

To get ready for the economic downturn, many companies throughout the globe are laying off workers. Meta Platforms said this week that it will cut expenses by 13% by displacing more than 11,000 employees. After Tesla named Elon Musk its new CEO, Twitter announced sizable layoffs (about 50%). Twitter has cut its workforce by 50% globally, including more than 90% of its employees in India.