A Quarter of Disney’s 28,000 Layoffs Are Coming From Disney World Says ABC
Last week, we here at MickeyBlog shared the sad news that Disney Chairman Josh D’Amaro released an official statement announcing that due to the continued financial hardship from the COVID-19 shutdown they would be letting 28,000 cast members go.
You can check out the official statement here:
Thought a major catalyst of this decision seems to be the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom has yet to announce any plans regarding the reopening of Disneyland Resort, it should be noted that the impact is far reaching. The layoffs include cuts to cast members at Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line and even Walt Disney Imagineering is expected to be impacted.
The last photo of the full orchestra. Image: The Grand Floridian Society Orchestra on Facebook.
A report on ABC News this evening estimates that a least a quarter of these employees will come from Florida. This is according to paperwork submitted by the Walt Disney Company to state and local officials. In the letter, Disney announced that 6,390 nonunion Disney employees in Florida will be laid off starting in early December. However, it should also be noted that this could grow. Roughly 43,000 employees at Walt Disney World are represented by local workers unions who’s statistics are NOT included in these numbers.
“Due to the continuing business impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce,” Jim Bowden, a Disney vice president of employee relations said in the letter.
In his announcement D’Amaro did say that about 2/3rds of the layoffs would be part-time workers ranging from salaried employees to hourly workers. However, there’s also been some cuts in wide range of departments from entertainment (The Grand Floridian Society Orchestra played their last performance yesterday), marketing, Imagineering and more.
Over the next week, we expect the size and scale of this to become much more clear. It is a story that we’ll be following closely and will continue to keep you posted.
Source: ABC
