Disney today laid off between 100 and 200 in its Experiences division, Deadline has confirmed. Experiences includes the company’s theme parks, resorts and cruise lines. The bulk of the pink slips were at Disney’s Imagineering campus in Glendale.
A person familiar with the decision indicated that the moves were mostly project-based, as the division constantly must reprioritize and schedule based on the workflows of multiple projects across its mandate.
For context, Disney had 231,000 employees as of the end of fiscal 2025, 172,000 in the U.S. and 59,000 elsewhere. Largely due to the theme parks and resorts businesses, 16% of workers are part-time and another 8% are seasonal employees.
The cuts follow Disney’s voluntary early retirement offer to employees at or above the director level who are 50 years old or older and have been at the company for at least 10 years. The process typically is a precursor to involuntary staff reductions.
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Josh D’Amaro has overseen multiple rounds of layoffs since the company veteran succeeded Bob Iger as CEO last March. The first came last April, when 1,000 positions were cut. Several hundred more followed in July, mostly at Pixar and National Geographic. A September round of layoffs impacted a couple hundred employees in the areas of tech and HR.
The Experiences division is a profit juggernaut. In the company’s most recent earnings report, Experiences profit rose 20% to over $3 billion on almost $10 billion in revenue. Global guests grew 4% and attendance at domestic parks rose 3%. WDW saw healthy core attendance increases from domestic tourists and annual passholders.Forward bookings remain robust.
Theme parks average per capita ticket revenue rose 5%. Disney noted continued, but moderating, headwinds from international attendance at domestic parks. It cited strong attendance growth at Disneyland Paris following the opening of World of Frozen. Overall, it anticipates a quarter of global guest growth in the current fiscal Q4 despite consumer softness in Asia.
Disney Entertainment Television is expected to undergo a major restructuring under new head Debra OConnell. The same applies to the motion picture studio.
Talk about more layoffs has percolated internally since a September 18 memo by Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer Horacio Gutierrez. In an email to LGA employees obtained by Deadline, he warned of “hard choices” about “staffing investments” and the division becoming “a much smaller organization.” He went on to describe a “transformation process” that includes “automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies.”
Nellie Andreeva and Dade Hayes contributed to this report.
