Disney’s September Layoffs Hit Veteran Tech and HR Staff

The latest Disney layoffs cut around 300 jobs, mostly in human resources and technology, the third round since Josh D’Amaro became chief executive in March.

Film and television production were largely left out on September 29. The notices went to shared corporate functions, and they followed a retirement offer aimed at older, long-serving executives that had just closed.

The Cuts Landed on HR and Tech First

A person familiar with the matter said the majority of the jobs were in human resources and technology, across corporate teams and inside divisions. Walt Disney Studios was primarily exempt. Disney Entertainment Television was not part of this round either.

That split is easy to miss if you only tally heads. Disney reported 231,000 people as of fiscal 2025, with about 172,000 in the United States and 59,000 abroad. Roughly 76% were full-time, 16% part-time, and 8% seasonal, a mix weighted toward parks and resorts. Tuesday’s cuts are a thin slice of that total. They are not a thin slice of the office layer that runs payroll, systems, and people operations.

D’Amaro took over on March 18 after the board named him in February, ending Bob Iger’s second run as CEO. Iger remains a senior adviser and a director until December 31, 2026. D’Amaro has been at the company since 1998, when he started at Disneyland. A parks operator now runs the whole enterprise, and the first six months have been a sequence of headcount moves in marketing, animation, sports, and now the back office.

A Retirement Window Built for People 50 and Over

The notices followed Disney’s Voluntary Early Retirement Offer. Sonia Coleman, senior executive vice president and chief people officer, described the program in an August 24 memo to leaders ranked director and above. It was open to U.S. staff from director to executive vice president in Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and corporate. Eligibility used a 65-point test, age plus years of service, with a floor of age 50 and at least 10 years at the company. People on contract were out.

Fifty plus 10 years is only 60 points. A 50-year-old needed 15 years. A 10-year veteran needed to be 55. The window was built for a band of long-tenured managers, not for the seasonal parks workforce that fills out the headcount charts. Coleman told leaders the offer was one of several actions, and she did not pretend the rest of the plan was voluntary.

This is one of several actions we’re taking to reshape our organization, including involuntary staff reductions that have already begun in some areas and will continue into next year.

Sonia Coleman, Senior EVP and Chief People Officer, staff memo

She also wrote that the company hoped eligible people could decide “on their own terms before broader organizational decisions are finalized.” Participation, the memo said, was optional. The enhanced package was the incentive to choose.

WHAT THE RETIREMENT PACKAGE INCLUDES

• Separation pay: Eligible executives who opted in received an enhanced payout on the way out.
• Equity vesting: Existing equity awards kept vesting instead of being cut off at departure.
• Healthcare rates: Health coverage continued at the prices paid by active employees.
• Silver Pass: Park access through Disney’s Silver Pass continued after they left.

Federal age-discrimination law allows a bona fide voluntary early retirement plan. If a company wants a signed waiver from a group, the rules are stricter: workers get at least 21 days to consider the agreement, and the employer has to disclose ages and job titles in the pool. Coleman’s memo stressed time to decide, a confirmation period, and a dedicated support team. The cooling-off window for people who opted in ended the weekend of September 26 and 27. The involuntary notices followed on Tuesday.

April, July and Now September

Tuesday’s round is the third since D’Amaro arrived. April took about 1,000 jobs, many of them in a consolidated marketing group under chief marketing and brand officer Asad Ayaz, with more cuts in studio, television, ESPN, products, technology, and corporate. July took several hundred, with the heaviest blows at Pixar and National Geographic, and more at ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and the studios.

THE 2026 CUTS SO FAR

On August 5, D’Amaro and chief financial officer Hugh Johnston told shareholders they were evaluating a variety of levers, including reductions in labor and SG&A, and that they were “mid-stream in this work.” The retirement offer went out later that month. Tuesday’s HR and technology cuts are the first public headcount move after that letter, not the last one Coleman described.

Horacio Gutierrez Told Legal It Would Get Smaller

Talk of more cuts had already moved through Burbank. On September 18, Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer Horacio Gutierrez sent a memo to his staff warning of “hard choices” about “staffing investments.” He said the division would become “a much smaller organization.” He described a “transformation process” that includes “automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies.”

Legal and global affairs has a bit less than 1,000 people worldwide. Those unspecified reductions, people inside the company said, are not the same round that hit HR and technology on September 29. The memo still traveled far beyond the legal group, in part because it named automation as a reason the office would shrink. AI is now part of how Disney talks about fewer corporate jobs, even when the Tuesday list is a human-resources and technology list.

Human resources is also on both sides of the process. The same function that designed the retirement window, ran the election period, and is now handling exits is losing staff of its own. That is a practical problem as much as a cultural one. Coleman already told leaders the involuntary work continues into next year.

The 8,000-Job Playbook Survived the CEO Handoff

Between 2023 and 2025, some 8,000 Disney workers were let go. The company booked about $7.5 billion in cost savings, more than it first projected. D’Amaro’s 2026 rounds are smaller on paper. The sequence is familiar: a public cost target, a voluntary window for older managers, then involuntary cuts, then another memo.

In an April note to staff, D’Amaro said the company would eliminate roles and had begun notifying people. “I know this is hard,” he wrote. “Those that will be leaving us have done meaningful work here and care deeply about this company. These decisions are not a reflection of their contributions, or of the overall strength of the company.” He also said Disney needed “a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce.” Five months later, technology is one of the groups being reduced.

The Iger comparison is the line that makes Tuesday look minor. It is the wrong unit of measure for the people who received the retirement packet. They were selected by age and tenure in Entertainment, ESPN, and corporate. Then the company cut the departments that process those exits. Parks labor still dominates the 231,000. The office layer keeps absorbing the reorganizations.

What Debra OConnell’s Television Group Still Faces

Dana Walden became president and chief creative officer on March 18 and reports to D’Amaro. That same week she named Debra OConnell chairman of Disney Entertainment Television, a new post covering ABC Entertainment, Disney Branded Television, Hulu Originals, National Geographic content, and creative work at 20th Television and 20th Television Animation. OConnell also kept ABC News and the owned stations.

July already cut into that world, especially National Geographic. September skipped it. The expectation inside the company is that OConnell still has a major restructuring to run. Staff in television can read the exemption as a delay, not a pass.

The org chart around her is already moving. On September 17, Adam Smith was named sole chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment, overseeing Disney+ and Hulu product, engineering, advertising technology, programming, and data. Joe Earley, who had shared that job, moved under OConnell as president of DET franchise and content strategy. Eric Schrier left his streaming originals post for a producing deal with the television group. The TV side is being redrawn even when it is not on the layoff list.

Alan Bergman remains chairman of the film studios. John Landgraf still runs FX and reports to Walden. Sean Shoptaw’s games group now sits inside Entertainment. The creative businesses were stacked under Walden in March. The cost work D’Amaro and Johnston described in August is running through that stack in pieces, division by division, memo by memo.

Park Apps Stay Clunky as Tech Headcount Falls

On the August earnings call, D’Amaro said that in his first five months he had focused on making Disney execute as one company around a unified strategy. He calls the operating model One Disney. The same period that produced the retirement offer and the September cuts also produced a quarter in which revenue rose 7% to $25.2 billion and total segment operating income rose 21% to $5.6 billion. Toy Story 5 had passed $1 billion at the global box office.

The technology organization being reduced is also the one that supports park apps and the Hulu interface, two of the consumer surfaces that One Disney depends on. Those products already draw complaints from guests and subscribers. A smaller tech staff is a hard way to rebuild them. A smaller HR team is now running a multi-month exit process that Coleman said will last into next year.

The people this round reached are not the animators whose films still sell tickets. They are the older directors and vice presidents in tech and HR who met a 65-point test, and the colleagues who did not take the offer and then got a Tuesday notice. Television staff are still waiting to learn what OConnell’s restructure looks like. Iger is still on the board until December 31, 2026, and Coleman has already told leaders that involuntary reductions continue into next year.