Disney’s Latest Layoffs: A Tough Year for the Company
The news in America isn’t all bad. Disney, during its third round of significant layoffs this year, is currently letting go of hundreds of employees across various departments.
If you think that’s amusing, well, maybe it is.
This past July, Disney had already cut jobs, trimming hundreds from its workforce. Earlier in April, around 1,000 roles were eliminated as well.
But, to put this in perspective, Disney has a workforce of over 200,000, so we’re still very much in the thick of things.
These layoffs, which are the latest under newly appointed CEO Josh D’Amaro, mostly impact the human resources and IT departments—both corporate and across different divisions, according to someone familiar with the situation.
In a recent report, D’Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston hinted at the possibility of more job reductions in the future. They stated, “We remain highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise to create incremental capacity to invest for growth and are evaluating a variety of levers, including reductions in labor and SG&A,” referring to selling, general, and administrative expenses. They assured shareholders that updates would be shared as they progress through this process.
This situation exemplifies what happens when a company takes bold steps that alienate everyday customers through poor product offerings and questionable marketing aimed at children.
Meanwhile, Netflix is currently struggling, and if it’s facing challenges, it can’t be good news for Disney and its streaming service, Disney+.
A lot of viewers are turning to platforms like YouTube, where user-generated content seems more relatable, universal, and less polarizing—plus, it doesn’t exploit the innocence of children.
As a fan of true crime content long before it gained widespread popularity, I find Netflix’s take on the genre pretty disappointing. It often feels like filler compared to the high-quality true crime produced by everyday folks on YouTube.
Interestingly, the director-general of the BBC recently shared that he received a 50-minute AI-created episode of Doctor Who, and he noted that it was “pretty good.”
This highlights a growing trend: ordinary people will increasingly produce entertainment utilizing AI right from their homes. The rise of this content is already affecting Hollywood, especially as more individuals discover it on platforms like YouTube. In five years, our consumption of entertainment may look drastically different than it does today.
Change is coming fast, and, I hope, it’s for the better. Yes, there will certainly be those creating low-quality content out there, but—let’s face it—that’s already happening, right?
What AI really shifts is the dynamic, taking some control away from those who have traditionally dominated the industry, allowing more of us to become creators ourselves.
