DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.

Walt Disney Co. is moving toward thousands of job cuts as the entertainment company presses some managers to target 20% in annual cost savings, according to people familiar with the matter. The possible reductions would extend a prolonged campaign to reduce expenses across the business.

The savings may come through job eliminations as well as cuts to other expenses, the people said. They asked not to be identified because the discussions remain private, leaving the scope of the potential workforce reductions undisclosed.

The 20% target applies to annual cost savings rather than a uniform 20% reduction in staffing. Still, the people familiar with the discussions specifically identified job eliminations as one avenue Disney may use to reach the requested savings.

Disney operates theme parks, a movie studio and TV networks, and the effects are not expected to fall evenly across those businesses. Some operations will be affected disproportionately, according to the people, although they did not identify every unit facing the deepest reductions.

Chief Executive Officer Josh D'Amaro intends to direct part of the savings back into several important areas. Those areas include film and TV programming, technology, theme parks and the cruise ship businesses, the people familiar with the matter said.

That approach would pair another round of expense reductions with selective reinvestment inside Disney. The company is attempting to lower costs while committing some of the resulting savings to programming, technology and businesses tied to its parks and cruise operations.

The potential cuts arrive as Disney has promised growth in adjusted earnings per share in the double digits during the current fiscal year. The company has not publicly detailed the possible job reductions described by the people familiar with the private discussions.

A Disney representative declined to comment. That leaves the reported savings targets, possible job eliminations and uneven effects across the company's operations resting on information provided by people familiar with the matter.

Disney has already removed billions of dollars in costs and eliminated thousands of positions in recent years. Those reductions have reached every division, showing that the company's cost campaign has not been limited to one business or a narrow group of employees.

The divisions affected by earlier reductions include ABC, Pixar, ESPN, the film studio and the experiences unit. Disney employed 231,000 people around the world at the end of the last fiscal year, providing the workforce backdrop for the latest possible cuts.

Separate reports have also pointed to restructuring and reductions inside specific corporate operations. The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 1 that Disney was planning to restructure its TV division and make cuts in its legal and global affairs unit.

The latest discussions therefore follow previous reductions that have already touched entertainment brands, corporate functions and the experiences business. The reported plan would again ask parts of a sprawling company to absorb savings demands while management redirects some money toward selected operations.

Disney President Dana Walden addressed the company's organizational approach at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles last month. Her remarks focused on repeatedly examining Disney's structure and the size of the organization as technology bears down on its business.

“there is a need to constantly evaluate how you're structured and how big is the organization. Technology set their sights on our business and we must survive and thrive and grow, and that's what we're going to do.”

Walden's comments outlined an environment in which organizational size remains under continued review. The current discussions put that review into sharper focus, with some managers being asked to pursue a substantial annual savings target and job cuts among the available options.

For Disney's workforce, the central development is the possibility of thousands more eliminated positions after years of reductions. For management, the reported objective combines lower expenses with reinvestment in programming, technology, parks and cruise operations while pursuing its stated earnings growth goal.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.