REPORT: Josh D’Amaro Deepens Disney Cost Cuts With New Wave of Changes

The belt-tightening at Disney is showing no signs of easing.

Josh D’Amaro inherited a company already reshaped by years of restructuring when he succeeded Bob Iger as CEO in March. Since then, Disney has continued hunting for efficiencies across an empire spanning film, television, streaming, sports, technology, consumer products, and theme parks.

The company employed approximately 231,000 full and part time workers at the end of fiscal 2025. Its headcount has faced repeated scrutiny as traditional television declines, streaming competition intensifies, and Disney increasingly consolidates operations across previously separate businesses.

Now, another group of employees is feeling the impact.

Disney Targets Corporate Teams in Latest Cuts

Disney is laying off several hundred employees, with the latest reductions concentrated primarily in its human resources and technology departments (via Deadline). The new cuts mark the third significant round of layoffs under D’Amaro since he became CEO.

The reductions are smaller than Disney’s previous rounds this year and largely affect shared corporate functions. Disney Entertainment Television and the company’s motion picture studio are reportedly outside the scope of the latest action.

The cuts follow approximately 1,000 job eliminations announced in April. Those reductions stretched across marketing operations serving Disney’s studios, television networks, ESPN, product and technology teams, and other corporate groups.

Marketing was particularly affected as Disney consolidated its enterprise-wide marketing organization under chief marketing and brand officer Asad Ayaz. The move arrived roughly one month after D’Amaro formally succeeded Iger on March 18.

Another several hundred employees were cut in July. Pixar bore the majority of reductions within Disney’s studio operation, while National Geographic accounted for most of the cuts within Disney Entertainment Television. ESPN also reduced staff as it integrated NFL Network.

The latest reductions therefore extend a pattern that has touched significantly different corners of Disney within six months.

They also arrive alongside a separate overhaul inside Disney’s Legal and Global Affairs division.

Chief legal and global affairs officer Horacio Gutierrez recently warned employees that the division would become “a much smaller organization.”

His September 18 memo outlined plans to automate certain workflows, expand self service systems, use alternative legal providers, and outsource selected work. Gutierrez said the changes would require “hard choices” involving staffing and investment.

Disney has also offered voluntary early retirement packages to some longtime executives as part of its continuing effort to reduce expenses. Variety reported in August that the company had extended early retirement buyouts to eligible veteran executives.

Taken together, the moves suggest D’Amaro’s cost reductions are spreading beyond the highly visible film and television divisions that have absorbed many of Disney’s previous layoffs.

D’Amaro Signals More Disney Cost-Cutting

Disney had already made clear that its efficiency drive remained unfinished.

In its August earnings materials, D’Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston said the company continued to pursue savings across its cost base, including selling, general and administrative expenses and labor.

“We are mid-stream in this work.”

The latest layoffs provide another indication of what that work looks like in practice.

Disney reported stronger than expected earnings in August, even as management continued emphasizing efficiency. D’Amaro also told investors during his first five months as CEO that he was focused on making Disney operate more cohesively across divisions.

The strategy extends a cost cutting campaign launched during Iger’s second tenure as CEO.

Disney initially announced plans in 2023 to eliminate approximately 7,000 jobs as part of a broader corporate restructuring. Later reporting put the ultimate number of positions eliminated during those major rounds at more than 8,000.

The company also substantially increased its savings ambitions.

Disney originally targeted $5.5 billion in annualized savings before raising that goal to approximately $7.5 billion. That figure included reductions in entertainment cash content spending alongside lower SG&A and other operating expenses.

Smaller rounds of layoffs continued after the major 2023 restructuring.

In 2025, Disney eliminated fewer than 200 positions across ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks before cutting several hundred more roles spanning film, television, marketing, publicity, casting, development, and corporate finance that June.

The renewed focus on efficiencies comes as another former Disney chief executive, Bob Chapek, revisits his own approach to costs in his book, Behind the Castle Walls.

Chapek has defended decisions, including theme park price increases and charges for services that were previously included with admission, arguing during his Disney tenure that the company had opportunities to generate greater returns.

He has also publicly reopened his long running dispute with Iger, telling CNBC that his predecessor was “actually working against me, actively.”

D’Amaro now faces his own version of Disney’s efficiency challenge.

Less than seven months into his tenure, three waves of layoffs have already touched marketing, Pixar, National Geographic, ESPN, technology, human resources, and other corporate operations.

And with Disney itself describing its latest savings work as unfinished, September’s cuts may represent another stage of a restructuring campaign that has now stretched across multiple chief executives.

What are your thoughts on Disney’s latest layoffs?