Unfortunately, the bad news keeps coming for Walt Disney World Cast Members. Just a few days after laying off over 90% of their Entertainment Cast Members, the resort has filed paperwork with the state of Florida stating that over 10,000 additional Cast Members will lose their jobs before the year’s end. With this latest addition, Walt Disney World has now terminated 18,000 of the 28,000 announced layoffs in the domestic Disney Parks division, which means roughly 10,000 Cast Members at Disneyland will likely make up the difference.
The 10,000 Cast Members at Walt Disney World affected by this announcement will be laid off by December 31, 2020. No information about what positions or departments will be affected have been made available.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek has come under fire recently for all these layoffs at the Walt Disney Company, especially as executive pay has been restored to pre-pandemic levels even as Cast Member positions are being eliminated on a massive scale. US Senator Elizabeth Warren has sent an open letter to Chapek asking about this very issue, and Presidential Candidate Joe Biden has also made a political ad responding to the Cast Member layoffs, bringing national attention to the rapidly deteriorating situation at Disney Parks.
Though some cost-cutting was certainly expected as part of the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the volume of job losses on such a massive scale at Walt Disney World continue to shock local communities and economies, with many finding the resort’s cost cutting procedures to be too much for a resort that has been open since July and continues to welcome thousands of guests on a daily basis.
