Disney Is Laying Off 28K Theme Park Workers

Company blames COVID restrictions
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 29, 2020 6:17 PM CDT
Disney Is Laying Off 28K Theme Park Workers
Guests wear masks as required to attend the official reopening day of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., Saturday, July 11, 2020.   (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Squeezed by limits on attendance at its theme parks and other restrictions due to the pandemic, The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday it planned to lay off 28,000 workers in its parks division in California and Florida. Two-thirds of the planned layoffs involve part-time workers but they ranged from salaried employees to hourly workers, Disney officials said. The Florida parks reopened this summer, but the California parks have yet to reopen as the company awaits guidance from state authorities, the AP reports. In a letter to employees, Josh DÁmaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experience and Product, said California's “unwillingness to lift restrictions that would allow Disneyland to reopen" exacerbated the situation for the company.

DÁmaro said his management team had worked hard to try to avoid layoffs. They had cut expenses, suspended projects and modified operations but it wasn’t enough given limits on the number of people allowed into the park because of pandemic-related measures, he said. "As heartbreaking as it is to take this action, this is the only feasible option we have in light of the prolonged impact of COVID-19 on our business, including limited capacity due to physical distancing requirements and the continued uncertainty regarding the duration of the pandemic,” he said. California’s health secretary on Tuesday said the state was close to working out a way to have the theme parks reopen in a responsible way. Walt Disney World in Florida has around 77,000 employees, while the Disneyland Resort in California has more than 30,000 workers.

(More Disneyland stories.)

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