layoff

Termination notices went out to 150 NBC News Group employees Wednesday as the financial health of the traditional television business continues to erode.

The cuts have been anticipated for months as NBC is seeing declines in TV ratings and ad revenue that are not being fully offset by a growing digital business.

Audience migration to streaming platforms has put pressure on legacy outlets across the media industry, leading to layoffs and cost-cutting.

A representative for the NBC News Group, which produces “Today,” “NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas” and “Dateline,” declined to comment on the layoffs.

The cuts are also attributed to the spinoff of cable networks MSNBC and CNBC, according to a person briefed on the plans who was not authorized to comment. As of last week, NBC News no longer shares resources with the two outlets, which will become part of a new company called Versant. Some NBC News veterans have decided to join MSNBC, which will be renamed MS NOW.

Versant is the new stand-alone home for most of Comcast’s cable networks, including USA Network, the Golf Channel, CNBC and MSNBC. Comcast is spinning off the channels because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price.

Some of the job losses are expected to be mitigated by a reallocation of resources aimed at bolstering the division’s digital operations. The employees affected by the cuts have been encouraged to apply for 140 jobs currently open across the NBC News Group.

The cuts amount to 2% of the NBC News Group, which also includes local TV stations owned by NBC and Telemundo.

A recent memo from NBC News Group Chair Cesar Conde said the division is launching a subscription streaming service later this year, although details have not been made public. The company already has NBC News Now, a free ad-supported streaming channel.

More cuts across the TV news business are expected through the end of the year. A significant reduction in staffing is expected at CBS News following the merger of parent Paramount with Skydance Media.

ABC News was hit hard by a 6% staff reduction across the ABC TV network enacted in March by parent Walt Disney Co. Those cuts followed a layoff of 40 news staffers in October 2024.

WASHINGTON — A new round of layoffs at the Education Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration’s previous mass firings, threatening new disruption to the nation’s students and schools in areas including special education, civil rights enforcement and after-school programs.

The Trump administration started laying off 466 Education Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the government meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown. The layoffs would cut the agency’s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced by more than half its size when President Trump took office Jan. 20.

The cuts play into Trump’s broader plan to shut down the Education Department and parcel its operations to other agencies. Over the summer, the department started handing off its adult education and workforce programs to the Department of Labor, and it previously said it was negotiating an agreement to pass its $1.6-trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.

Department officials have not released details on the layoffs and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE Local 252, a union that represents more than 2,700 department workers, said information from employees indicates cuts will decimate several offices within the agency.

All workers except a small number of top officials are being fired at the office that implements the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that ensures millions of students with disabilities get support from their schools, the union said. Unknown numbers are being fired at the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.

The layoffs would eliminate or heavily deplete teams that oversee the flow of grant funding to schools across the nation, the union said. They affect the office that oversees Title I funding for the country’s low-income schools, along with the team that manages 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs.

It will also hit an office that oversees TRIO, a set of programs that help low-income students pursue college, and another that oversees federal funding for historically Black colleges and universities.

In a statement, union President Rachel Gittleman said the new reductions, on top of previous layoffs, will “double down on the harm to K-12 students, students with disabilities, first generation college students, low-income students, teachers and local education boards.”

The Education Department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office. After the new layoffs, it would be down to fewer than 2,000. Earlier layoffs in March had roughly halved the department, but some employees were hired back after officials decided they had cut too deep.

The new layoffs drew condemnation from various education organizations.

Although states design their own competitions to distribute federal funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the small team of federal officials provided guidance and support “that is absolutely essential,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance.

“Firing that team is shocking, devastating, utterly without any basis, and it threatens to cause lasting harm,” Grant said in a statement.

The government’s latest layoffs are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Government Employees and other national labor unions. Their suit, filed in San Francisco, said the government’s budgeting and personnel offices overstepped their authority by ordering agencies to carry out layoffs in response to the shutdown.

In a court filing, the Trump administration said the executive branch has wide discretion to reduce the federal workforce. It said the unions could not prove they were harmed by the layoffs because employees would not actually be separated for an additional 30 to 60 days after receiving notice.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

Five months ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass revealed that more than 1,600 city workers might have to be laid off to close a $1-billion budget shortfall.

On Tuesday, after months of negotiations, Bass stood at City Hall with union leaders and announced that her administration had averted every layoff.

“Some people said it couldn’t be done, but I am so glad to stand here today and say that we have proved the naysayers wrong,” Bass said.

The announcement came on the heels of an agreement with the L.A. City Coalition of Unions, which collectively represents gardeners, mechanics and clerks, who will take up to five unpaid holidays in 2026. Seventy-five workers had previously been targeted for layoffs.

Since the mayor unveiled her proposed budget in late April, she and the City Council have worked to reduce layoffs through a variety of cost-cutting measures. The council scaled back hiring at the LAPD and reduced the number of new hires in the fire department, saving about 1,000 jobs.

Last month, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents sworn LAPD officers, and the Engineers and Architects Assn., which represents city planners and some LAPD civilian employees, signed agreements with the city that saved nearly 300 other jobs.

The Police Protective League agreed to a voluntary program where officers can take days off in exchange for overtime hours, while Engineers and Architects Assn. members will take up to five unpaid holidays.

While the unions negotiated, the city began laying off workers, with many members of the Engineers and Architects Assn. sent home, said Marleen Fonseca, the union’s executive director.

On Monday, Fonseca spoke with a member who had been hospitalized over the weekend, delivering the good news that he had his job back.

“Had we not had this agreement, he would be facing a medical crisis with no health insurance,” she said. “This is the real human difference that solidarity makes.”

The city also moved some employees targeted for layoffs into open jobs in other departments. The City Council worked over the course of 10 committee meetings to find those openings, said Councilmember Tim McOsker.

“This is great news for this fiscal year, but we must remain clear-eyed: our city’s budget challenges will continue and we need to stay focused on long-term solutions and protecting our city workforce and services,” McOsker said.

The Trump administration has moved to lay off more than 500 employees who work for the federally funded network Voice of America, which provides global reporting in places with restricted press freedom.

In March, Trump officials first attempted to close down some of the organization’s newsrooms. But Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia called for the network’s restoration last April, citing a law that requires the Voice of America broadcast to be continued.

Despite the ruling, Kari Lake, the acting chief executive of Voice of America’s oversight agency, posted on social media on Friday evening that 532 government positions were eliminated.

Before the downsizing, Voice of America was responsible for broadcasting news in 49 languages to 360 million people every week, including in Russia and China. Now, the network only airs programming in four languages: Persian, Mandarin, Dari and Pashto.

The layoffs “will likely improve [the agency’s] ability to function and provide the truth to people across the world who live under murderous Communist governments and other tyrannical regimes,” wrote Lake on X.

Most of the 1,300 Voice of America journalists had already been fired or remained on paid leave prior to these layoffs. Only 100 journalists and other staff members remain employed by the organization.

After being asked by the remaining employees to ensure the administration was in line with his April ruling, Lamberth found that they appeared to be noncompliant.

Earlier this week, he ordered Lake to provide sworn testimony at a deposition and threatened to hold her in contempt for going against court orders. He also blocked the administration from firing Voice of America’s Director Michael Abramowitz, the day before these layoffs were announced.

Nearly 300 Los Angeles city employees were saved from being laid off after two major unions signed off on cost-cutting measures.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents more than 8,700 rank-and-file officers, agreed to create a voluntary program in which its members can take days off in exchange for some of the overtime hours they previously worked.

The layoffs would have affected 222 civilian LAPD employees, such as clerks and administrative support workers. No sworn LAPD officers were slated to be laid off, but some would have had to do the work of the civilians who departed.

“We are continuing to do everything we can to bring layoff numbers down and I want everyone to know that we are still working and anticipate this number to get even lower,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. “These numbers are not final.”

Meanwhile, the Engineers and Architects Assn. authorized a deal for its 6,000 members to take as many as five unpaid vacation days — in effect furloughs — between Jan. 1 and June 30, which could amount to about a 2% pay cut.

The deal saved the jobs of 63 members who do not work for the Los Angeles Police Department, in roles such as city planner, analyst and civilian investigator.

Some of the LAPD civilian employees who had been in danger of being laid off are represented by the Engineers and Architects Assn., and others are represented by other unions. The Police Protective League represents only sworn officers.

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, who oversees labor negotiations at City Hall, said the money freed up by the agreements whittled the number of remaining layoffs to 75. He sent a memorandum to the city’s personnel department on Wednesday to “immediately hold in abeyance the layoff process” for employees represented by the Engineers and Architects Assn., as well as all LAPD employees.

In her proposed budget released in April, Bass called for about 1,600 layoffs as part of a strategy to eradicate a $1-billion shortfall. Weeks later, the City Council made a series of other cost-cutting moves, reducing the number of layoffs by half.

To close the budget shortfall, the council also decided to slow down police hiring — though the mayor and council president later announced that they are looking for money to avoid that outcome.

Since the budget was finalized, hundreds of workers have either left city employment or transferred to positions that are safe from the budget ax, leaving 360 positions targeted for layoff before this week’s agreements, according to a memorandum by Szabo on Aug. 15.

The Police Protective League’s Board of Directors called its agreement with the city a “win-win for all parties.”

“Officer safety is always top of mind for our union and the thought that any additional officers would be pulled away from enforcement duties and moved to non-enforcement duties compelled our union to act,” the board said in a statement. “We worked with the city to create a program that will save money to preserve civilian LAPD jobs while also providing a benefit to our members.”

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the city’s budget committee, said that
“even in a tough budget year, we’ve ensured there will not be a single LAPD civilian layoff.”

“That was always our goal, but it was never guaranteed,” she said. “It was only possible because the Engineers and Architects Assn., the Police Department and City leadership worked in partnership to keep officers on the street and protect public safety.”

Roy Samaan, president of the Engineers and Architects Assn., said his union’s members authorized the agreement with the city in an online vote Sunday.

“We don’t want anyone to lose their jobs,” he said.

WASHINGTON, July 14 (UPI) — Despite an apparent reversal on mass layoffs, the Department of Veterans Affairs is still planning a workforce reduction, prompting legal challenges, staff unrest and warnings from frontline nurses who say the cuts will harm the very veterans the VA is meant to serve.

The VA has signaled it would not move forward with mass layoffs initially envisioned, but recent developments show the agency is still on track to eliminate tens of thousands of jobs by the end of 2025.

Internal contracts and legal challenges suggest broader restructuring efforts are underway, yet the scope and restructuring framework is unclear, raising concerns among lawmakers, unions and frontline workers about their potential impact on veteran care and employee rights.

In a VA press release last week, the agency secretary, Doug Collins said the “VA is headed in the right direction,” thanks to departmental reviews conducted since March.

“A department-wide [reduction in force] is off the table, but that doesn’t mean we’re done improving VA. Our review has resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving veterans that we will continue to pursue,” Collins said.

30,000 employees to be cut

The VA, which employs over 467,000 medical professionals, administrative staff and others, also announced the press release that it’s on track to reduce its workforce by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of fiscal year 2025 through retirements, resignations and attrition.

The department says this voluntary path eliminates the need for a formal reduction in force.

However, that conflicts with a $726,000 contract signed in May by the VA and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to prepare for a mass layoff. The contract was prepared because the VA said it lacks the internal expertise for such a wide-scale restructuring and requires OPM to supply seasoned human relations specialists to guide layoffs.

Neither the VA nor OPM responded to multiple phone and email requests for comment on the status of the contract. And, so, the VA’s actual plan remains mired in lack of information and confusion for employees, veterans and congressional representatives.

A VA spokesman said Monday that the department is “in the process of winding down that contract with OPM.”

Of the 83,000 VA positions Collins previously set as a goal to cut, according to the department’s latest update, the agency had shed nearly 17,000 positions as of June 1, with another 12,000 departures expected by Sept. 30.

“Nobody in their right mind thinks you can cut 80,000 workers and not cut resources to the veteran,” said Irma Westmoreland, chair of the Veterans Affairs division of National Nurses United, who was reacting to the original plan.

Nurses skeptical

VA nurses on the front lines remain skeptical that reduced staffing can be carried out without affecting patient care, one of their union representatives said. The VA is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing services at 1,380 facilities to more than 9.1 million enrolled veterans each year, according to the agency.

“The VA says nurses and doctors won’t be affected, but that just means they’re cutting all the support staff,” Westmoreland said. “That’s still going to impact patient care.”

Westmoreland said the VA has failed to include frontline staff in restructuring discussions, and that the resulting fear and confusion already have caused widespread staffing shortages. That’s because many have decided to retire or switching to another health care system.

The remaining staff is facing burnout by being assigned additional tasks outside of their role to fill the staffing gaps, Westmoreland said.

“People who can retire are retiring. People just hired are leaving. And the rest of us are being stretched thin to do non-nursing work like cleaning, delivering trays, even transporting patients,” she said.

Although the VA plans the staffing cutbacks, the department is requesting $441.3 billion in fiscal year 2026, according to its budget request released in May. Paradoxically, that is a 10% increase from the 2025 fiscal year budget.

Budget approved in House

House Republicans approved a $435.3 billion budget on June 25, but the Senate must prepare its version of the spending plan. The Military Times noted that “the plan is unlikely to pass as its own standalone measure, but instead is expected to be approved sometime this fall as part of an all-of-government spending package.”

The VA said the funding increase, if it happens, would be prioritized toward health care, benefits and national cemeteries.

Much of what is coming has not been shared with Congress, and congressional staffers who work for the House Veterans Affairs Committee say they are in the dark about the agency’s plan.

“VA indicated to the committee in June that they are ‘allowed to do planning, but no execution’ of a reduction in force,” a committee statement said. “They have developed recommendations for an RIF for VA Central Office positions, but that plan has not been signed off on.”

Requests ignored

Staffers also noted that repeated requests for documentation by Democrats on the House Veterans Affairs Committee have been ignored, raising questions of whether veterans will be negatively impacted by the proposed changes.

“We continue to have serious concerns about the effects of VA’s plan because details remain so limited,” said a Democratic staffer who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak for the committee. “We are conducting an ongoing investigation into VA’s workforce reduction efforts.”

Meanwhile, legal challenges to President Donald Trump‘s March 2025 executive order to mandate sweeping federal workforce reductions had complicated VA’s path forward.

The order was initially blocked by a federal court, but the Supreme Court lifted that injunction Tuesday, allowing agencies like VA to resume planning for workforce cuts while the legality of the order is still under review.

In a separate lawsuit, a federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction in June against the Trump administration for stripping federal workers of their union rights.

Unions file suit

Six major unions — National Nurses United; American Federation of Government Employees; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; National Association of Government Employees; National Federation of Federal Employees; and Service Employees International Union — filed that suit.

In a June press release from National Nurses United, the unions argued that Trump’s order violated the First and Fifth amendments by taking away collective bargaining rights without due process from nearly 1 million federal employees. Westmoreland said the case is critical for protecting care quality and the rights of VA staff.

“Collective bargaining rights are critical for union nurses so we can advocate for our veterans and ensure they get the care they deserve,” National Nurses United’s Westmoreland said. “We will fight for our veterans who put their lives on the line for us.”

The court has temporarily stopped the administration from stripping federal workers of their union rights. The injunction is still in place while the lawsuit plays out.

Representing veterans as president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2092, Robert Malosh said the administration’s actions have created a culture of fear and uncertainty among staff.

Life-threatening gaps

Malosh, a veteran, recounted the union’s role in addressing life-threatening gaps in emergency care at the main VA hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“For almost 30 years, [certified registered nurse anesthetists] were expected to respond to emergency airway calls from home. We identified that risk and bargained for 24-hour on-site coverage,” he said. “Just last month, a CRNA told me they saved a life. If they weren’t already in the building, that veteran would have died.”

Malosh said that cases like this spotlight the value of unions in identifying blind spots and advocating for both staff and veterans. He described a troubling case involving podiatric surgeries being delayed due to administrative interpretation of care eligibility rules, potentially placing diabetic veterans at risk of amputation or worse.

He also pushed back against a VA back-to-office mandate, calling it a disruptive change that was poorly planned and worsened care delivery.

Back to the office

According to the VA, it announced its back-to-office mandate Feb. 3, ordering all employees, except those with approved arrangements, to work full-time at their assigned duty stations.

The announcement followed Trump’s presidential memorandum Jan. 20 for a back-to-office mandate across all agencies and departments in the executive branch, according to the White House.

Malosh said a number of issues arose with that mandate: For one, employees struggled with Wi-Fi issues due to the influx of people connecting, causing disruptions for telehealth medical appointments.

Also , mental health professionals who had been working privately from home were moved to shared offices and cubicles, causing veterans to feel uncomfortable due to lack of privacy. Malosh said some veterans saw people in the background of a private call.

As the VA moves forward with plans to reduce its workforce, questions remain about the long-term effects on veteran care and employee stability.

With ongoing legal challenges, congressional scrutiny and staff uncertainty, the future of the agency’s restructuring efforts and their consequences for the nation’s largest health care system remain unresolved.

Warner Music Group will lay off an unspecified number of employees as part of a months-long restructuring plan to cut costs, Chief Executive Robert Kyncl said in a memo to staff Tuesday.

Kyncl said in the memo that the plan to “future-proof” the company includes reducing annual costs by roughly $300 million, with $170 million of that coming from “headcount rightsizing for agility and impact.” The additional $130 million in costs will come from administrative and real estate expenses, he said.

The cuts are the “remaining steps” of a period of significant change at the company, Kyncl said, with previous rounds of layoffs and leadership switch-ups happening in the last two years as he worked to “transform” the company.

“I know that this news is tough and unsettling, and you will have many questions. The Executive Leadership Team has spent a lot of time thinking about our future state and how to put us on the best path forward,” Kyncl said in the internal memo that was reviewed by The Times. “These decisions are not being made lightly, it will be difficult to say goodbye to talented people, and we’re committed to acting with empathy and integrity.”

It’s unclear how many employees will be laid off or what departments will see cuts, but Kyncl emphasized the company will be focused on increasing investments in its artists and repertoire department and mergers and acquisitions.

Hours before the news of layoffs, the company announced a $1.2-billion joint venture with Bain Capital to invest in music catalogs. The collaboration will add to the company’s catalog-purchasing power across both recorded music and music publishing, Kyncl said.

“In an ever-changing industry, we must continue to supercharge our capabilities in long-term artist, songwriter, and catalog development,” he wrote. “That’s why this company was created in the first place, it’s what we’ve always been best at, and it’s how we’ll differentiate ourselves in the future.”

In 2024, Warner Music laid off 600 employees, or approximately 10% of its workforce, and in 2023, 270 jobs were cut.

Warner Music Group shares closed at $27.83, up 2.17%, on Tuesday.

With the Friday notices, 85 percent of Voice of America’s workforce had been slashed.

Layoff notices have been sent to 639 employees of Voice of America (VOA) and the United States agency that oversees it, effectively shutting down the outlet that has provided news to countries around the world since World War II.

The notices sent on Friday included employees at VOA’s Persian-language service who were suddenly called off administrative leave last week to broadcast reports to Iran following Israel’s attack.

Three journalists working for the Persian service on Friday, who left their office for a cigarette break, had their badges confiscated and weren’t allowed back in, according to one fired employee.

In total, some 1,400 people at VOA and the US Agency for Global Media, or 85 percent of its workforce, have lost their jobs since March, said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior adviser to the agency. She said it was part of a “long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy”.

“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste,” Lake said in a news release. “That ends now.”

VOA began by broadcasting stories about US democracy to residents of Nazi Germany, and grew to deliver news around the world in dozens of languages, often in countries without a tradition of free press.

But President Donald Trump has fought against the news media on several fronts, with the complaint that much of what they produce is biased against conservatives. That includes a proposal to shut off federal funding to PBS and NPR, which is currently before Congress.

‘Death’ of independent journalism

Most VOA employees have been on administrative leave since March 15, their broadcasts and social media posts mostly silenced. Three VOA employees who are fighting the administration’s dismantling of VOA in court were among those receiving layoff notices on Friday.

“It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” plaintiffs Jessica Jerreat, Kate Neeper and Patsy Widakuswara said in a statement.

The Persian-language employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing legal case, was in the office Friday when colleagues were barred from re-entry. The person was afraid to leave for the same reason – even though authorities said their work had been halted – until receiving a layoff notice.

Steve Herman, VOA’s chief national correspondent who was in the process of retiring to take a job at the University of Mississippi, called the layoffs an “historic act of self-sabotage with the US government completing the silencing of its most effective soft-power weapon”.

It’s not clear what, if anything, will replace VOA’s programming worldwide. The Trump-supporting One American News Network has offered to allow its signal to be used.

Although plaintiffs in the lawsuit called on Congress to continue supporting VOA, Herman said that he is not optimistic that it will survive, even if a Democratic president and Congress take over. For one thing, every day it is off the air is another day for viewers and readers to get into another habit for obtaining news.

“I believe that the destruction is permanent,” Herman said, “because we see no indication in the next fiscal year that Congress will rally to fund VOA.”

By the time another administration takes power that is more sympathetic to the outlet, “I fear that VOA will have become forgotten,” he said.

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media company to shed employees from its cable TV channels, with several dozen positions jettisoned Wednesday.

The layoffs, confirmed by an executive not authorized to comment publicly, are aimed at improving efficiency across the company as cable TV revenues sink because of cord-cutting.

The moves at Warner Bros. Discovery come two days after the Walt Disney Co. implemented a bloodletting across its film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate operations.

The cuts at Disney numbered in the hundreds. The figure for Warner Bros. Discovery is much smaller than that, though an exact number was not disclosed.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie and TV production studios and streaming operation, soon to go back to its earlier name, HBO Max, will not be hit by the cutbacks.

The cuts come as Warner Bros. Discovery is said to be pondering a possible spinoff of its declining cable TV assets, which include its Turner channels, Discovery Networks, HGTV and Food Network, similar to what Comcast is doing with its NBCUniversal cable outlets (with the exception of Bravo).

Comcast is putting MSNBC, CNBC, the Golf Channel, USA Network and other outlets into a new company called Versant, separating the mature businesses from the rest of the company as it focuses on streaming.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently reorganized into two business units. The entertainment giant last year took a $9.1-billion writedown to reflect the declining value of its TV networks.

The cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery come just a day after a rare shareholder rebuke of its executive pay packages, a sign of growing unhappiness with the company’s financial performance.

A majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package given to Chief Executive David Zaslav and other executives at the company’s recent annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing.

Almost 60% of the votes cast came in against the 2024 executive pay package at the company, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. The vote is nonbinding, and thus symbolic.

Walt Disney Co. launched another deep round of layoffs on Monday, notifying several hundred Disney employees in the U.S. and abroad that their jobs were being eliminated amid an increasingly difficult economic environment for traditional television.

People close to the Burbank entertainment giant confirmed the cuts, which are hitting film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations.

The move comes just three months after the company cut 200 workers, including at ABC News in New York and Disney-owned entertainment networks. At the time, the division said it was cutting its staff by 6% amid shrinking TV ratings and revenue for traditional television.

Disney declined to specify how many workers were losing their jobs. The cutbacks come after Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger acknowledged to Wall Street that Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete against Netflix. The programming build-up accelerated as the company prepared to launch Disney+ in late 2019, and it bulked up its staff to handle the more robust pipeline.

But the company since has retrenched, recognizing the need to focus on creating high-quality originals that meet Disney’s once lofty standards.

ABC News shed about 40 employees last October. The company’s TV stations also lost staff members.

The ABC television network and Disney-owned entertainment channels have seen dramatic audience defections as consumers switch to streaming services, including Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney+.

Hollywood trade site Deadline first reported the news.

The Los Angeles City Council signed off on a $14-billion spending plan for 2025-26 on Thursday, scaling back Mayor Karen Bass’ public safety initiatives as they attempted to spare 1,000 city workers from layoffs.

Faced with a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall, the council voted 12 to 3 for a plan that would cut funding for recruitment at the Los Angeles Police Department, leaving the agency with fewer officers than at any point since 1995.

The council provided enough money for the LAPD to hire 240 new officers over the coming year, down from the 480 proposed by Bass last month. That reduction would leave the LAPD with about 8,400 officers in June 2026, down from about 8,700 this year and 10,000 in 2020.

The council also scaled back the number of new hires the mayor proposed for the Los Angeles Fire Department in the wake of the wildfire that ravaged huge stretches of Pacific Palisades.

Bass’ budget called for the hiring of 227 additional fire department employees. The council provided funding for the department to expand by an estimated 58 employees.

Three council members — John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez — voted against the budget, in large part due to cost-cutting efforts at the two public safety agencies. Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades, voiced alarm over those and other reductions.

“I just can’t in good conscience vote for a budget that makes our city less safe, less physically sound and even less responsive to our constituents,” she said.

Rodriguez offered a similar message, saying the council should have shifted more money out of Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program to address homelessness. That program, which received a 10% cut, lacks oversight and has been extraordinarily expensive, said Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley.

“Inside Safe currently spends upwards of $7,000 a month to house a single individual. That’s just room and board and services,” she said. “That doesn’t include all of the other ancillary services that are tapped from our city family in order to make it work, including LAPD overtime, including sanitation services, including the Department of Transportation.”

Councilmember Tim McOsker, who sits on the budget committee, said the fire department would still see an overall increase in funding under the council’s budget. Putting more money into the police and fire departments would mean laying off workers who fix streets, curbs and sidewalks, said McOsker, who represents neighborhoods stretching from Watts south to L.A.’s harbor.

McOsker said it’s still possible that the city could increase funding for LAPD recruitment if the city’s economic picture improves or other savings are identified in the budget. The council authorized the LAPD to ramp up hiring if more money can be found later in the year.

“I would love to put ourselves in a position where we could hire more than 240 officers, and maybe we will. I don’t know. But today we can’t,” McOsker told his colleagues.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who joined the council in December, also defended the budget plan, saying it would help create “a more just, equitable and inclusive Los Angeles.”

“This budget doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t close every gap. But it does show a willingness to make some structural changes,” she said.

Bass aides did not immediately respond to inquiries about the council’s actions. A second budget vote by the council is required next week before the plan can head to the mayor’s desk for her consideration.

Bass’ spending plan proposed about 1,600 city employee layoffs over the coming year, with deep reductions in agencies that handle trash pickup, streetlight repair and city planning. The decisions made Thursday would reduce the number to around 700, said City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, who helps prepare the spending plan.

The remaining layoffs could still be avoided if the city’s unions offer financial concessions, said Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the council’s budget committee. For example, she said, civilian city workers could cut costs by taking four to five unpaid furlough days.

“My goal, my fervent goal and hope, is that labor comes to the table and says ‘We’ll take some furloughs, we’ll take some comp time off,’” Yaroslavsky said.

The city entered a full-blown financial crisis earlier this year, driven in large part by rapidly rising legal payouts, weaker than expected tax revenues and scheduled raises for city employees. Those pay increases are expected to consume $250 million over the coming fiscal year.

To bring the city’s budget into balance, council members tapped $29 million in the city’s budget stabilization fund, which was set up to help the city weather periods of slower economic growth. They took steps to collect an extra $20 million in business tax revenue. And they backed a plan to hike the cost of parking tickets, which could generate another $14 million.

At the same time, the council scaled back an array of cuts proposed in Bass’ budget. Over the course of Thursday’s six-hour meeting, the council:

* Restored positions at the Department of Cultural Affairs, averting the closure of the historic Hollyhock House in East Hollywood, protecting its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

* Provided the funds to continue operating the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, which had been threatened with elimination.

* Provided $1 million for Represent LA, which pays for legal defense of residents facing deportation, detention or other immigration proceedings. That funding would have been eliminated under Bass’ original proposal, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said.

* Moved $5 million into the animal services department — a move requested by Bass — to ensure that all of the city’s animal shelters remain open.

* Restored funding for streetlight repairs, street resurfacing and removal of “bulky items,” such as mattresses and couches, from sidewalks and alleys.

Even with those changes, the city is still facing the potential for hundreds of layoffs, around a third of them at the LAPD.

Although the council saved the jobs of an estimated 150 civilian workers in that department — many of them specialists, such as workers who handle DNA rape kits — another 250 are still targeted for layoff.

“We took a horrible budget proposal, and we made it into one that is just very bad,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents part of the west San Fernando Valley. “It took a lot of work to do that, but it is better and we did save jobs. But the fundamentals are still very bad.”