Disney Parks, Experiences and Products will be laying off another 4,000 workers by March 2021, the company disclosed in a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
These workforce reductions come on top of the 28,000 layoffs that the division already instituted beginning in September as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another 37,000 employees in the division have been furloughed but are not scheduled for termination, according to the SEC filing.
In all, the layoffs make up more than 20 percent of the 155,000 Disney employees in the Parks, Experiences and Products division as of Oct. 3. Disney World alone has lost nearly a quarter of the 77,000 workers it had employed in 2019.
“During fiscal 2020 and continuing into fiscal 2021, the world has been, and continues to be, impacted by COVID-19. COVID-19 and measures to prevent its spread impacted our segments in a number of ways, most significantly at Parks, Experiences and Products where our theme parks were closed or operating at significantly reduced capacity for a significant portion of the year, cruise ship sailings and guided tours were suspended since late in the second quarter and retail stores were closed for a significant portion of the year,” Disney said in the SEC filing.
As of Thanksgiving 2020, two Disney resorts remain partially closed thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The two theme parks at the Disneyland Resort have been shuttered since mid-March and will not reopen in 2020. The Disneyland Paris Resort closed again on Oct. 29 due to new COVID-19 mitigation efforts in France, and is now scheduled to remain closed until Feb. 12, 2021.
Disney’s fiscal year ended on Sept. 30. The company reported its first annual loss in 40 years and estimated that the pandemic cost the theme parks division $6.9 billion in operating income.
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