Disney to lay off 28,000 full and part-time employees, citing prolonged theme park shutdowns

Disney is laying off 28,000 employees, citing the months-long, coronavirus-related closures of its California-based theme parks and limited attendance at its open parks. 

The company made the announcement Tuesday in a memo to employees.  

Roughly 67% of the laid-off workers are part-time employees, Disney executive Josh D’Amaro said in the memo. 

Disney’s theme parks in Florida, Paris, Shanghai, Japan and Hong Kong have been able to reopen with limited capacity, but California Adventure and Disneyland have remained shuttered in Anaheim, California, according to CNBC.

“As you can imagine, a decision of this magnitude is not easy,” D’Amaro wrote in the memo, obtained by the cable TV news network. “For the last several months, our management team has worked tirelessly to avoid having to separate anyone from the company. We’ve cut expenses, suspended capital projects, furloughed our cast members while still paying benefits, and modified our operations to run as efficiently as possible, however, we simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while operating at such limited capacity.”