Disney Weighs Thousands of Layoffs. 159 Glendale Jobs End Dec. 29.

A state WARN notice lists 159 permanent layoffs at Disney's 1401 Flower Street address, home to Walt Disney Imagineering.

At 1401 Flower Street in Glendale, the address Walt Disney Imagineering calls home, 159 jobs now have an end date: Dec. 29.

That date comes from a WARN notice that Walt Disney Parks & Resorts US filed with California's Employment Development Department on Oct. 27. It lists all 159 layoffs as permanent. The bigger number came Monday, when Bloomberg News reported that Disney is moving toward thousands of job cuts and has told some managers to cut annual costs by 20%, according to Variety. Disney declined to comment to Variety.

The two numbers aren't the same story yet. Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, said some parts of Disney would be hit harder than others but didn't say which, Variety reported. Nothing on file ties the Glendale notice to the larger plan.

If the plan goes ahead, it would be the fourth round of cuts this year under CEO Josh D'Amaro, and the biggest. Bloomberg reported that he wants to put some of the savings back into film and TV, technology, the theme parks and the cruise ships.

The earlier rounds add up. In April, Disney cut about 1,000 roles, mostly when it merged its marketing teams into one division. Pixar and ESPN were among the corporate teams that lost people in July, in a round Variety put at several hundred jobs. A few hundred more followed in late September, mostly in human resources and IT. In between, in August, Disney offered buyouts to longtime executives age 50 and up with at least 10 years at the company.

None of it came out of nowhere. In an Aug. 5 letter to shareholders, D'Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston wrote that they were weighing "reductions in labor and SG&A," Wall Street shorthand for overhead.

The Glendale filing doesn't name a single job title or project, the Disney parks site BlogMickey reported. BlogMickey matched the address to Imagineering and noted the notice landed a day before the Los Angeles Times reported that 100 to 200 jobs were being cut in the parks division. The 159 falls right inside that range. California generally requires 60 days' notice for a layoff this size, which is why the last day falls in late December.

The timing stings a little. On Oct. 20, a week before the filing, D'Amaro toured Monstropolis, Tropical Americas and Lakeshore Lodge with the Imagineers building them, BlogMickey reported. All three are set to open at least in part in 2027. BlogMickey described Imagineering as a project-based shop whose teams grow and shrink as schedules move, and said it still expects the first phases of Monstropolis and Tropical Americas to hit their 2027 targets.

Disney isn't alone. Netflix cut about 1,000 workers last month, and Skydance is expected to make big cuts by year's end, Variety reported. Speaking at Bloomberg's Screentime event last month, Disney's top creative executive and president, Dana Walden, said companies like hers face "a need to constantly evaluate how you're structured," Variety reported.

Disney reports its September-quarter results on Nov. 17, before the market opens, and investors will be listening for the size of the cuts. In Glendale, the date that matters is already on a state form: Dec. 29.

Source: State of California, retrieved November 3, 2026. Other sources: Variety, blogmickey.com.