The Walt Disney Co. will begin notifying employees impacted by layoffs this week, according to multiple news reports.
The company’s CEO, Bob Iger, reportedly said in an internal memo Monday that the company would notify employees in three rounds, beginning this week with the first impacted workers, according to Axios, CNN and CNBC.
“Leaders will be communicating the news directly to the first group of impacted employees over the next four days,” he wrote, according to Axios. Disney did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
“A second, larger round of notifications will happen in April with several thousand more staff reductions, and we expect to commence the final round of notifications before the beginning of the summer to reach our 7,000-job target,” CNBC reported.
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The entertainment giant said in February that it would cut around 7,000 jobs as part of a broader transformation for the company.
Disney said the job cuts were part of an aim to save $5.5 billion company-wide. As of Oct. 1, Disney employed 220,000 people, of which about 166,000 worked in the U.S. and 54,000 internationally.
Iger came back to Disney in November on the heels of a difficult tenure for previous CEO Bob Chapek, who succeeded Iger in 2020.
The layoff notifications come amid a wave of job reductions across multiple industries in recent months, from media to technology, despite a generally strong labor market last year.
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Contributing: Alex Veiga, Associated Press