Disney cuts about 300 jobs in HR and technology, its third round of layoffs this year under D'Amaro

Walt Disney is laying off about 300 employees, most of them in human resources and technology, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by CNBC. Reuters reported a few hundred cuts in the same two departments, Fox Business reported. It is the third round of layoffs since Josh D'Amaro replaced Bob Iger as chief executive in March.

Disney shares closed at $105.47 on Tuesday, down 0.1%, and were little changed after hours, according to Nasdaq data. The company is valued at about $182 billion, and the stock trades between its 52-week low of $92.19 and high of $117.09.

The size of it

Disney employed about 231,000 people at the end of fiscal 2025, roughly 172,000 in the U.S. and 59,000 abroad, according to the figures Fox Business cited. By our arithmetic, 300 jobs is about 0.13% of that.

Adding up the rounds reported this year gives a clearer picture than any single headline:

• April: about 1,000 roles, centered on the consolidated marketing group, with cuts also in the studio and TV units, ESPN, products and technology.
• July: several hundred, mostly at Pixar and National Geographic, according to CNBC.
• August: voluntary early-retirement packages for employees at director level and above in Disney Entertainment, ESPN and corporate, open to those 50 or older with at least 10 years of service.
• September: about 300, mostly HR and technology.

Since July's figure is "several hundred", the reported total for 2026 is roughly 1,600 to 2,300 jobs, about 1% of the workforce or less. That is a fraction of the 7,000 cuts Disney made in 2023 under Iger, which were tied to a $5.5 billion cost-savings target.

Why the stock barely moved

The cuts were flagged. In its August earnings report, Disney said it was "evaluating a variety of levers, including reductions in labor and SG&A" and was "mid-stream in this work," promising future updates. A pre-announced, small reduction in back-office functions changes little in the model of a company this size, which is why the shares finished flat.

What has not been disclosed is a savings figure for the 2026 program. Unlike 2023, when the $5.5 billion target gave investors a number to hold management to, D'Amaro's "One Disney" reorganization, which aims to link film, streaming, parks, consumer products, gaming and sports more tightly, has come without a public cost target. Whether one arrives with fiscal fourth-quarter results is the thing to watch.

Who it hits

This round falls on corporate support staff in HR and technology, not on creative teams or park workers, consistent with the One Disney aim of merging functions that each division used to run separately. Disney has not said whether any of that work moves to outside vendors. More in our stocks section.

Sources: CNBC; Fox Business, citing Reuters; Nasdaq. Percentages and totals are Chronicle calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.