First Job To First Layoff, Former Disney Editor’s Poignant Post Highlights Corporate Cuts

Walt Disney Co. has started a new round of layoffs, targeting corporate workers, who become the latest to fall to the Burbank media and entertainment Giant’s $7.5 billion cost reduction plan. This week Disney has made the move to cut some of its workforce as part of its plan to get rid of about 300 positions. Through a statement issued to The Times on Thursday, the House of Mouse stated that it was interested in effectively managing its resources and cutting costs. In a recent post on LinkedIn, one of the employees recently laid off described her job at Disney as the one filled with so many “firsts".

The user stated on LinkedIn, “First full-time job after college. First promotion. First acquisition. First auction pre-empt. First starred review… First state award… And now, the ‘first’ that everyone hopes not to experience: first layoff."

The user explained how the development was revealed to her in a surprise meeting. She was reportedly escorted into a conference with representatives from Human Resources and the manager only to be told that Disney was eliminating her position. She had been with the company for five years.

Having accepted the problems that existed in children’s publishing as well as in the overall world, she pointed to the fact that although she was not given the option to have a choice to leave, she was still content. The user went on to mention that she was leaving Disney•Hyperion as a new person, having evolved from a publishing hopeful to an accomplished editor.

Deadline reports that the layoffs have affected Disney’s legal, HR, finance, and communication departments. People employed in other activities such as those at ESPN and parks, or Disney entertainment are not immediately impacted.

A Disney representative was quoted by the publication as saying that the firm was always seeking to deploy capital in its businesses and improve the materials and expenses tasked with feeding consumers’ expectations of innovative imagination. In the course of this effort, they examined, as many others have, the cost structure of their major corporate staff and sought additional ways to make them more efficient.

The announcement follows many months of layoffs in Disney’s television division. At Disney Entertainment Television, 140 positions were cut by the media behemoth in July, accounting for around 2% of the workforce. Disney’s Pixar division let off 175 workers in May or 14% of the workforce.