Sources inside the Disney Company have revealed plans for mangers/executives to prepare plans for budget cuts including thousands of employees to be laid off in the beginning of April.
According to Business Insider, just a few weeks after the new CEO Bob Iger took back control of the company, a February earnings call revealed he had plans to reduce costs by laying off thousands of employees.
The Los Angeles Times reports, “Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger said Wednesday that the Burbank company will shed 7,000 jobs in an effort to save $5.5 billion in costs, marking some of the steepest reductions in the company’s history and the latest sign of Hollywood’s retrenchment.”
“The belt-tightening underscores the extraordinary difficulties Disney and other media giants face as they reckon with the realities of streaming economics — which have proved more vexing than many anticipated — and the challenges facing Iger, who took over from ousted CEO Bob Chapek in November.”
Many critics have said the cause of the company’s financial issues has been the “go woke, go broke” paradigm.
Disney’s stock has fallen over 50% from its high only two years ago and reports show their streaming service is also loosing money.
According to a report from Forbes, “In Q4 this year their streaming business lost an eye-watering $1.5 billion. Not only is that crazy high, but it’s way more than the $630 million that it lost the same time the year before. The losses are also expected to continue for some time yet.”
The company has not admitted their “woke” policies and views on its movies was a wrong decision. In fact, they have doubled down, if not tripled down on “wokeness” which has led to major bombs at the box office and huge subscriber losses on its streaming service.