The Walt Disney Company’s President Dana Walden said on Thursday that the company’s layoffs were “extremely painful” but necessary for its survival. Disney has carried out several rounds of cost cutting measures in recent years to combat intense competition in streaming, while advances in AI tools have also become a cheaper production alternative for the billion-dollar company. “We’ve exited colleagues who I’ve worked with for most of my career... It is in many ways a harsh reality,” Walden said during the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles. “It is extremely painful,” she added. More than 300 people were laid off from Disney on Tuesday, most of whom work in human resources and information technology, according to U.S. media reports. It comes after Disney eliminated around 1,000 positions in April, primarily across the company’s marketing group, following the arrival of new chief executive Josh D’Amaro, trade media reported. Walden said the company had also offered a group of executives “the opportunity to make their own decision around whether the timing was right to leave or to stay” as part of a voluntary retirement plan. It remains unclear if the latest wave of layoffs made use of the initiative. “There is a need to constantly evaluate how you’re structured,” Walden said about Disney and its competitors in the technology industry. “Technology set their sights on our business, and we must survive and thrive and grow. And that’s what we’re going to do,” she said. The Walt Disney company did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
