Why Disney Is Cutting 1,000 Jobs Under New CEO?

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Disney is planning to eliminate 1,000 jobs over the next few weeks, marking the first major layoffs since the company handed the keys to its new CEO, Josh D'Amaro. 

Disney’s Latest 2026 Layoffs Explained

The news broke on Wednesday evening through a Wall Street Journal report.

For a company with a global workforce of roughly 231,000 full- and part-time employees, 1,000 cuts may sound small on paper. But the message it sends is large: the new boss means business.

The new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, took over from Bob Iger in March and will oversee these new layoffs. He was officially named CEO on February 3 and took the reins on March 18 at Disney's annual shareholder meeting.

On his very first day, D'Amaro sent a letter to employees declaring: "We will operate as One Disney." That phrase, it turns out, is more than a slogan. It’s a blueprint for cutting duplication across divisions, which directly sets up the current round of layoffs.

The biggest target in this round of cuts is Disney's marketing department. In January, Disney promoted veteran executive Asad Ayaz to the newly created role of Chief Marketing and Brand Officer, unifying marketing for entertainment, experiences, and sports under one roof.

The internal restructuring initiative driving these cuts even has a codename: "Project Imagine". The goal is to eliminate overlapping roles, reduce costs, and make teams across film, television, and streaming work more efficiently together.

Beyond marketing, Disney is also merging the teams behind Disney+ and Hulu as it works to combine both into a single app. That kind of platform consolidation inevitably means people doing similar jobs will find themselves redundant.

However, planning for these layoffs actually began before D'Amaro officially became CEO. In other words, these cuts were already being designed under the old leadership structure. D'Amaro inherited the plan along with the title.

This move is part of a wider effort to:

• Reduce operational costs
• Streamline departments (especially marketing)
• Reallocate resources toward digital growth areas

That said, the cuts happen on his watch, and how he handles the fallout. 

This is Not New For Disney

If 1,000 job cuts sounds alarming, consider the recent history. Since Bob Iger returned as CEO in 2022 and launched a sweeping restructuring of the company, Disney has already let go of more than 8,000 employees, achieving cost savings of $7.5 billion.

The cuts have come in waves. In 2023, the plan was 7,000 job cuts as part of a major restructuring. And as recently as last June, several hundred employees were laid off across Disney Entertainment divisions, including marketing, television publicity, casting, development, and corporate financial operations. 

In between these years, there have been smaller layoffs happening almost every quarter in different departments. The story of layoffs continues in 2026 as well.

The company is navigating a difficult environment on multiple fronts. 

Disney is contending with weaker profits from streaming, softer box office returns, and intensifying competition from Amazon and YouTube. The era when Disney could dominate theaters with massive franchises every quarter is under pressure, and streaming has not yet delivered the margins that traditional TV once offered.

Bottom Line

Behind the corporate language of "streamlining" and "efficiency," there are real people losing jobs. Employees inside Disney have expressed frustration, with one worker describing the company as exhausting to work for, citing nonstop restructures and layoffs. 

Some have questioned whether Disney's marketing division can absorb yet another round of reductions without serious damage to its ability to actually promote films and shows.

Those are fair concerns. A company that cuts its marketing team too deeply may find itself with great content that nobody hears about.

Still, Disney remains one of the most valuable and recognizable brands on earth, with theme parks, streaming, studios, sports broadcasting through ESPN, merchandise, and consumer products all under one roof. 

Its diversification is both a strength and a complexity, which is precisely why executives keep finding redundancies to cut.