• Disney is set to lay off more than 7 000 workers as a cost cutting measure by the company.
• The news comes after Disney announced its Q1 2023 earnings.
• The slowing adoption of its streaming service is seen as a contributing factor to the job losses too.

The spate of mass layoffs in the tech industry shows no signs of slowing down, as Disney is the latest to announce that thousands of workers will soon be let go. This follows news earlier this week that Dell would lay off roughly 5 percent of its workforce globally.

As for Disney, the figure of 7 000 is being thrown around, with the company announcing the news shortly after it shared its quarterly report for Q1 2023.

Reinstated CEO, Bob Iger, who rejoined the company in November of last year, noted that the layoffs were “necessary to address the challenges we’re facing today.” This is a similar line of thinking we have seen from other tech companies in recent months, with the global economic downturn coupled with overestimations during the pandemic leading to the situation that the technology industry finds itself today.

At the time of writing, it is unclear which regions, nor teams at the company will be most affected by the impending layoffs.

Moving forward, however, Disney is still placing most of its eggs in the streaming basket. To that end, it shared that 1.2 million subscribers were added over the past quarter, which is slower than predicted.

This figure also does not count the HotStar version of the platform, which is made available in regions like South Africa. This slow uptake is seen in the other properties under the company’s banner, with Hulu and ESPN Plus adding 800 000 and 600 000 internationally in the past quarter.

How it plans to bring more people to the platform remains to be seen, but it looks like Disney will be pushing its streaming platform over the coming year.

“Our priority is the enduring growth and profitability of our streaming business. Our current forecasts indicate Disney Plus will hit profitability by the end of fiscal 2024, and achieving that remains our goal,” explained Iger.

Here the ad-supported tier is not expected to make a significant impact. During an investor call, chief financial officer Christine McCarthy said that the company did not, “expect the launch of the Disney Plus ad tier to provide a meaningful financial impact until later this fiscal year.”