25% Of The 28,000 Lays Offs Are Walt Disney World Cast Members
[WDW] ABC reports that at least 25% of the 28,000 lay offs happening at the Walt Disney Company are cast members that are currently employed at the Walt Disney World resort.
At the end of September Disney made the sad announcement that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they made the tough decision to lay off 28,000 cast members. That number is the total number of cast members across the whole company, including up to 400 imagineers. Yesterday, ABC (also owned by the Walt Disney Company) reported that 25% of those 28,000 cast members being let go are cast members of Walt Disney World.
The letter said that at least 6,390 nonunion Disney employees in Florida will be laid off starting in early December. The number of Florida layoffs, though, could grow as the company negotiates terms with a coalition of unions that represents 43,000 employees at Walt Disney World.
“Due to the continuing business impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce," Jim Bowden, a Disney vice president of employee relations said in the letter.
Disney officials said last week that two-thirds of the planned layoffs involve part-time workers and they ranged from salaried employees to hourly workers.