As the entertainment industry continues to downsize, Paramount launched its second round of layoffs on Tuesday, aiming to reduce its workforce by 15% company-wide.
“We are taking these steps to ensure the continued success of Paramount, and after today, 90 percent of these reductions will be complete,” said Paramount co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins. said in a memo sent to employees, reported The Wrap.
The entertainment conglomerate is preparing to merge with Skydance Media and wants to cut 15% of its workforce and slash expenses by $500 million.
So far, cuts have been made in departments including marketing, communications, finance, legal and technology.
The second round of job cuts was first reported in August when Paramount Global co-CEO Chris McCarthy announced them during the company's second-quarter earnings call, but no timeline was provided at the time.
Hollywood has suffered a series of setbacks in recent years, with shares of Warner Bros. Discovery dropping in August. A sharp drop of $11.2 billion According to Yahoo Finance, the company on Wednesday “announced disappointing second-quarter earnings that fell short of expectations on both revenue and profit.”
But Hollywood has yet to fully recover from the pandemic-era that saw theaters close during coronavirus lockdowns, quickly followed by a double strike by the Actors and Writers Guilds.
Paramount isn't the only company feeling the financial pain: Disney also made cuts in August, with job cuts coming in across its ABC News and entertainment television divisions, with National Geographic and Freeform being hit particularly hard.
Disney has continued to make layoffs this year, after cutting 7,000 jobs last year.
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